Orbital Shift - Chapter 31 Reconnaissance II - Grass Eaters [HFY] (2024)

Atlas Naval Command, Luna

POV: Amelia Waters, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Admiral)

“We are exiting blink in five minutes,” the alien on the main screen reported. It was Peipplust, the Second Fleet Commander himself, reporting from on his Husky-class battleship, the MNS Cliunc, remotely to a situation room full of Republic Navy officers and analysts.

“Fleet Commander Peipplust, can we go over your post-blink procedures again?” Amelia asked nervously.

“There is no need for that,” Peipplust dismissed with a wave of his paw. “The Cliunc crew knows what to do.”

“Your last post-blink was half an hour too long—”

“Our ships are much larger and more complex than yours,” he explained in a patient voice. “That is why they take longer. You can’t expect our ships to be ready for combat within seconds upon arrival. Nor is there a point. Not even the Grass Eaters can predict our arrival and intercept us within that time.”

Amelia prepared to launch into a long debate about his ship’s large crew, the necessity of efficient operations, and Sixth Fleet’s far better combat readiness, but Chuck Harris cut her off, knowing she was not about to win the argument, “Peipplust, is your ship’s engineering section at least prepared to collect the data with the communication software we sent over?”

“Yes, yes,” he replied with a little less patience. “Everything is ready. Now, excuse me as I will need to go command my ship.”

The direct feed to the Cliunc continued to roll as the ship exited blink. To Amelia’s chagrin, it took the Cliunc’s Malgeir crew another twenty minutes before they completed calibration on the ship’s outdated radar systems and switched it on.

Through the raw data fed in by the Cliunc’s radar, the Terran computers in the Atlas command center were able to identify the roughly three squadrons of Znosian combat ships near the orbital defense station they’d constructed in orbit of its fourth planet, a refueling-capable gas giant.

“Something’s missing,” Amelia muttered.

Chuck looked intently at his tablet screen. “Yeah, the experimental SPARS ship isn’t there anymore. Maybe they’ve pulled it back or it’s occluded somewhere in the system.”

Amelia sighed. “Figures. We would have moved it too if we knew the enemy was sniffing around. How much time do we have?”

Samantha knew the figure off the top of her head. “A quick response squadron of Foragers from Pomniot-4 is now burning to intercept. We’ve got at least forty-eight hours before the Buns can reach the Cliunc, assuming a max accel burn.”

“So we have some time,” Amelia muttered. She pressed the unmute button and cleared her throat for the Malgeir’s attention. “Ahem, Fleet Commander Peipplust… we’re going to Plan B. It looks like our primary target might not be here, but there’s plenty more here to see and uh… we want to get our credit’s worth of reconnaissance since we made you come all the way out here.”

The alien sniffed, tilting his head. “Yes. We would not want to waste fuel for a pointless trip. Tell me what you want to see.”

“Get me the list of our secondary targets and an orbital maneuver for forty hours of loiter.” Amelia snapped her fingers at the analysts’ table. She looked back at the screen. “We’re getting that to you right now. Give my people a minute.”

Samantha came back just under the time limit. “We’ve got a defenseless fuel transfer depot at Pomniot-8. Of the sixteen facilities around Pomniot-4, one of them appears to be a supply warehouse, minimally defended. Recommend taking out the fuel depot, finding out how minimally defended that P-4 warehouse is, and a slightly closer look at the main ship dock’s defensive cluster.”

“Think he’ll go for that?” Amelia asked lightly.

“Uh… that’d be your department, Admiral.”

She arched an eyebrow and got back on the line. “Alright, Fleet Commander, we’ve got your list right here. First, there is an undefended enemy fuel depot at Pomniot-8. Service it with two of your anti-ship missiles from where you are now. Then—”

The alien commander held up a paw. “Hold on a second, Fleet Commander. I thought you said this was an observation mission.”

“So close. It is a reconnaissance mission. And if the enemy leaves her orbital infrastructure undefended, we are not in the habit of saying no.”

Peipplust started to grumble. “Fine, but my missiles will cost me—”

“Don’t bullsh*t me, Fleet Commander. We have your books. We know your missiles are supplied one-for-one by your Admiralty… since we insisted on that policy change last year. On the other hand, your fuel is not, and lugging all your missiles back to Stoers will actually cost you more in both fuel and maintenance. And who knows? You might even get a Defense Ministry medal out of this too. I hear they like seeing things explode.” Amelia managed to finish her rationalization with a completely straight face.

“I— had not considered that,” the fleet commander conceded smoothly on the screen. After a moment’s calculation, he turned aside to his tactical officer with notably more enthusiasm. “Weapons, target the fuel facility around the eighth planet and fire two missiles.”

The command center’s Navy computers in Atlas noted the missile launches and tracked their progress.

“Glad to see you agree,” Amelia continued. “Next, we want to see what’s defending the facilities around Pomniot-4. Accelerate the Cliunc to one percent of light and fire your full complement of ten missiles at the supply warehouse, marked ‘Tango Alpha’ on your targeting radar. Then, reload and fire another full volley at the main ship dock, marked ‘Tango Bravo’. And when you’re done, drop one of your modified observation buoys and burn for the blink limit.”

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The alien seemed to hesitate. “I’m not opposed to blowing up the Grass Eaters, but lobbing missiles at them from this far away… they will just intercept—”

“They will intercept the one towards the main ship dock and probably even the one at their supply warehouse,” Amelia explained. “But we want to find out what kind of defenses they have over there. That’s what we are here for, reconnaissance, and there’s no better way to reconnoiter than making the enemy react to fire. And who knows? Maybe we get a solid hit in. Missile defenses fail all the time.”

Peipplust took a moment to digest the information and agreed, and the Terran Navy computers showed his ship burning at ninety percent acceleration towards the targets.

He got back on the line. “Fleet Commander Amelia Waters, should we also fire missiles at the squadron coming to intercept us?” he suggested. “We can collect some… intelligence from that.”

She held her finger on the talk button. “Uh… that’s a good thought, Fleet Commander. Love the initiative… totally… but we already know how their Foragers— Delta-class ships… respond to a volley. Save your munitions, we might have some more targets for you on the way.”

A little under five hours later, the computers showed Cliunc firing her missile batteries at the targets… most of them. Three of the launchers malfunctioned in both volleys.

“Damn Malgeir weapons readiness… at least it’s close enough,” Amelia muttered. She looked over at the analysts’ table. “How’s the BDA on the fuel depot?”

“Looking good,” Samantha replied. “Solid hits. Debris vector analysis seems to indicate the depot was about half full but let me get back to you with a better number.”

She shrugged. “Better than half empty, I guess. What about the missiles heading for Pomniot-4?”

Samantha hesitated. “You… don’t actually think they’ll get a hit in… do you?”

“Nah, I just told him that to get him to do it. Only one percent light? The Buns will do it all efficient. Two counter-missiles each when they get in effective range of the mediums.”

“Long range batteries are my guess, Admiral. One each.”

“You think?”

Samantha pointed at her tablet. “The computer does. It thinks they’re not going to take chances… the Buns were already on edge. The Malgeir normally wouldn’t even try something like this.”

She pointed to the screen. “I guess we’ll find out… but not before the Puppers get out of dodge.”

Right on cue, Peipplust got back on screen. “My ship has fired the missiles and dropped the observation buoy as requested. Now we are burning back towards the blink limit.”

“Excellent work, Fleet Commander,” Amelia praised. “Come home and we’ll let you know if we find anything. Fly safe out there.”

The command screen lit up with a cacophony of warning lights.

“What’s going on?” Amelia asked, putting down her third cup of coffee.

Samantha looked at her, seemingly with as little smugness as she could muster on her face. “Observation buoys in Pomniot report that their long range defensive batteries just fired. One counter-missile for each of the inbound vampires.”

“Yeah, yeah, you were right. Good guess, Sam. Did we catch where they came from this time?”

“Affirmative. Logged their locations with Naval Command. We’ve updated our simulation models.”

She nodded in satisfaction. “Good, at least we got something out of this trip. What about the Cliunc?”

“They’ve arrived in Sconcans from blink, ma’am.”

“Is it going to take another half hour before they turn their radars back on?” Amelia asked impatiently.

“They’ve been in the sector for half an hour. The feed should be live… when they’re ready.”

It took another five minutes before the Malgeir crew managed to recalibrate the ship’s radar systems. When they did, the data began flowing into the Terran command center, and several alerts went off immediately.

The most pertinent showed up on the main screen immediately:

Bandits present in system.

“Four Forager-class missile destroyers, burning for the Cliunc. Five hours out,” Chuck reported. “They must have been waiting on our way in.”

Amelia glared at the screen. “We didn’t think to look for them?!”

Samantha sweated nervously. “They must have been hiding behind one of the planets, Admiral. The Cliunc doesn’t have a gravidar—”

Peipplust got back into frame of the video call. “Fleet Commander, we have a problem! We are still conducting post-blink procedures, but there are Grass Eaters in Sconcans with us!”

“Yes, we’ve heard,” Amelia replied calmly. “We have a working battle plan. Complete the rest of your post-blink procedures. We’ll get back to you in ten minutes after we run some simulations.”

Then, she muted the connection and looked at the tense room. “Ten minutes, people. We need a plan for how we can somehow outrun or outfight four Foragers with a rusty Husky before the Prime Directive comes into play.”

ZNS 0339, Sconcans (18,800 Ls)

POV: Sutpra, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Eight Whiskers)

Sutpra looked at the lone enemy flagship caught in the trap from her sensor screen.

“Eight Whiskers, the Lesser Predators are now making a vector adjustment,” her new computer officer reported.

She spun around. “Where are they heading now?”

“Digital Guide calculates they are burning straight for the Stoers blink limit at maximum combat burn.”

“And we will intercept them in—”

“Three hours, Eight Whiskers. We have adjusted to their trajectory in a lagging vector. They will not be getting away this time.”

“Good.”

Two hours later, various non-critical alarms on her ship began to sound.

The computer officer reported in. “Eight Whiskers, we are almost within our maximum effective range behind them. They appear to be dumping… some excess fuel and cargo. They have improved their acceleration.”

Sutpra frowned. “Are they getting away?”

“No, Eight Whiskers. Due to our high initial velocity, we are still traveling faster than they are relative to their destination. Our time to intercept has merely increased by 20 minutes.”

“Good.”

A few minutes later, several more notifications began to sound on her console.

“What is it this time?” Sutpra asked.

After checking for a moment, the computer officer straightened up to report. “They are dumping their escape pods, Eight Whiskers. Based on adjusted acceleration, our time to intercept has increased by another five minutes.”

“Good, track them. If there’s anyone alive in them, we’ll come back and pick them up when we’re done here.”

Before the computer officer could give her an affirmation, the notifications kept coming. This time, they were slightly more urgent. A large number of confused dots appeared on the radar screen before being dismissed by the computer.

“What did they dump this time?” she asked.

“Their entire load of countermeasures, Eight Whiskers. And they appear to be firing railgun projectiles at our general direction.”

Sutpra scratched her whiskers in almost-amusem*nt. “This far out? Are they actually firing them or dumping them with the rest of their cargo?”

“I take full responsibility for my error and thank you for the correction, Eight Whiskers. They appear to be dumping their railgun projectiles instead of actively launching them at us. Our time to intercept has increased by another two minutes.”

The klaxons on the bridge sounded as seven new dots representing missile threats appeared on the sensor board.

“Missiles?” Sutpra questioned.

“Launched beyond maximum effective range,” the computer officer said. “Should we go evasive?”

She thought for a moment. “Unnecessary. And slowing the chase to evade would be just what the Lesser Predators want. Reload counter-missiles and send two for each. By the time they intercept, they’ll be out of fuel.”

Sutpra proved to be right. The incoming missiles burnt out most of their fuel before they reached the counter-missile screen, and the ones that were on track to hit were easily intercepted.

After another minute, Sutpra looked at the computer officer, “It looks like the desperate predators are out of excess mass to dump. Calculate targeting solutions and fire once we get into maximum effective range. Let’s not waste munitions. Two from each ship should do.”

“Yes, Eight Whiskers.”