NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC FYI: The Atlantic Command Base is a MOBO (Mobile Offshore Base of Operations) and is the home port/staging center for the entire Veritasean Atlantic Fleet. It is manmade and is off of any primary air traffic corridors or shipping channels. Several hundred ships are based there along with seven or eight aircraft squadrons and one or two full brigades of Marines.

Minister Lance Sterling, the top officer in the Veritasean Imperial Navy, sat at his desk pouring over the latest reports on Pacific Fleet training. All segments of the Navy had undergone an extensive and exhausting three year training cycle that was just now coming to an end. All of the ships had been recently upgraded and so the sailors were finishing familiarizing themselves with the new systems. He was mid-way through the report on a mock invasion the Marines had staged when a knock sounded at his door and an aide tenatively entered. Sterling glanced up, beckoned the young enlistee in, and went back to his reading. Once he'd finished the page he looked back up at the aide.

"Sir, I work down in the Communications Center and they just sent me up to give you some news," the aide began.

"Alright, so go ahead and give it to me son, I've got things to do," the Minister replied impatiently.

"The Atlantic Command Base dropped off the net about an hour ago. We've tried raising them again but have yet to receive a response. The officers downstairs thought you'd want to know."

"An entire Command base suddenly disappeared from out communications network?" the Minister inquired in a disbelieving tone.

"Yes sir."

"Do we have anything we can send over to see what's going on?"

"A cargo plane was en route. We've tried contacting it, but to no avail."

"So, what could have happened?"

"Best-case scenario? They've had some freak power outage that took the auxiliary power out too. Middle-case? A ship broke free of its moorings and rammed the communications room of the base, damaging it pretty badly. Worst-case scenario? Something took out the base and most likely most of the ships as well."

"Excellent..." the Minister muttered, "Alright, page the Surface, Sub, and Air Marshalls as well as the Marine Commander. Send in my Intelligence Officer."

"Yes sir," the young man responded before exiting. A few moments later the Intel Officer entered and the Minister brought him up to speed.

"So, who'd do this and what does it mean?" the Minister demanded.

"We have several enemies, as you well know. It could have been any of them," the female officer responded smartly, "As for what it means...well, we've lost our ability to interfere in any event in the Atlantic Ocean at least temporarily. In order to recover that ability we'll have to take forces from the Indian/Arabian Zone or from the Pacific Ocean thus weakening us in those places too..."


OOC: Obviously I'm looking for some other nations to jump in either as allies or as those responsible. I'd prefer it to not be some terrorist act but instead either major piracy or an official act by another nation.

"I don't get it, sir. MILSTARS shows us as being all over the damn place." he XO grumbled.

Captain George Vedermann of the U.S.S. cruiser Tarsis scowled, the pale green of the screen casting shadows across his features and making him look vaguely gothic. MILSTARS was the combined Shalrirorchian satellite-based combat and navigation system that serviced the entire Shalrirorchian military command structure. Right now, it was being uncooperative....the captain had never witnessed a malfunction from the system until now.

"The reboot didn't have any effect?" Vedermann asked.

"Hell no, sir." the XO replied. "In fact, the readings are more confused than they were during the storm. Engineering believes our reception may have been compromised. Or maybe a virus is loose somewhere in the network."

"Fantastic." replied Vedermann. The storms in this area could be the stuff of legends. "What do you suggest we do now, Bob?"

"Well, sir. We need a frame of reference to determine definite location if we're going to meet up with the Asimov, sir. We have no stations in this sector. There is, however, a Veritasean naval station located approximately in this area here....I say approximately because without knowing exactly where we are...."

"Understood." Vedermann replied, walking back to the communications center. He paused long enough to clear his throat, then flipped on the broadcast circuit.

"Veritasean Naval Command Station, this is Captain George Vedermann of the Shalrirorchian cruiser USS Tarsis. We have lost primary navigational controls and are requesting your beacon."

Silence.

Intrigued, Vedermann flipped the switch again. "Veritasean Naval Command Station, this is Shalrirorchian cruiser Tarsis, transmitting from approximate coordinates fifty nautical miles to your south. Repeat, we have lost primary navigational controls and are requesting your beacon."

The Captain twisted around to his XO. "You said you know approximately where this place is? Well, then, #1, let's go and take a look in the neighborhood, shall we?"

The GIA agents had already executed a number of the Veritasean officers to make a point to the rest of the soldiers on the base. It had not exactly been easy to infiltrate the station...ultimately they had masqueraded as survivors a local ship sinking. The rest of it, such as hiding their weapons, had been easy. Several of the Islamic terrorists stood restlessly in the Command Center, nervously fingering their AK-47s. Many of their brethren had died in the attack already, and the fighting was still not over. But The Raven did not need the whole station. Only this portion of it.

"Introduce the virus to their system." he said, adjusting his dark glasses. If he'd just wanted to destroy the base, he could have done that from afar. But the Global Islamic Army wanted information from Veritasean computer systems to fuel their ongoing war to liberate the world from the tyranny of the imperialists. Once his virus cracked the system, The Raven could get on with the fun part.

"Is the bomb aboard?" he asked his subordinate. The young man nodded, turning as a large hand-truck of sorts was wheeled into the command center with a shrouded box on the bed. The Raven was a master of death and destruction, a man who had evaded countless dragnets to find him by the world. He could appreciate beauty when he saw it. He threw aside the cover, and dragged his scarred, broken hands down the cool metal side of the cargo beneath. One of his men had scrawled the message across the side of the warhead "Allah is great" in red paint, but the original lettering of the unit was still visible along the side of the control panel.

---------------------------------------------
UNITED STATES NB-1732-2211-9324
SHALRIRORCHIA
---Tactical Thermonuclear Device---
See inside cover for megaton and AM details
---------------------------------------------

The Raven smiled. A little toy he had managed to pry free of a poorly-secured stockpile. This was going to be a glorious day.

~TAG~

IC post forthcoming.

OOC: Interesting reply GIA. If we were following strict RP rules regarding reality then I might want to point out how hard it would be to take out two full brigades of Marines plus all the other people, but for the sake of RP we'll just say it happened, eh? ;)

IC:

"Do you think terrorists would be amitious enough to pull something like this off?" the Veritasean High Chancellor inquired of his Intelligence Minister.

"It is unlikely, given the sheer number of troops necessary to secure the entire base, not to mention every single ship moored there," the Minister responded noncommittally, "But, there are some pretty crazy terrorists out there so we can't rule out the possibility."

"We haven't made any enemies of foreign governments, so a terrorist attack seems the most likely answer, unless this was a random, surprise attack by a renegade nationstate," the Minister of Foreign Affairs put in. The conversation inside Highland Castle, the estate of Unum Veritas' High Chancellor, would have continued except a young Ensign rushed in with an Urgent comminque from Veritasean High Command. The Minister of the Navy, the senior-most military officer within UV, read the paper silently before giving an extremely brief synopsis to the other officials present.

"We've made contact via cellular phone with a young Marine lieutenant based on the Atlantic Base," he said, "Apparently they are under attack from an extremely large group of people that appear to be Middle Eastern terrorists. Several of the ships managed to get away before being damaged and, apparently we had a major training exercise going on so the terrorists found the base less than half-full. The majority of our Marines are off on LHD's practicing amphibious assault but have been ordered to be under radio silence."

"Hence why we didn't know where anyone was," the Intel Minister finished for his Naval counterpart.

"Well, this is good news," the High Chancellor responded, "We now know what has happened and that we have assets nearby to retake the base."

"Actually sir, I'd recommend against using the Marines to immediately take back the base," the Minister of the Marines said slowly, "I wouldn't be surprised if the terrorists have some sort of explosive device that they'd use to destroy the base and the Marines should they try to take it back over. I suggest we try to get some more intel before making any moves."

The rest of the Ministers agreed and so, for the time being, the command and control systems, as well as the primary base, for the entire Veritasean Atlantic Fleet was under enemy control.

The seas washed over the whip-like ESM antenna of K-120 as she cruised at antenna depth. Patrolling on her Atlantic station, the Akula-III submarine's task was to simply listen to anything and everything that passed her. She had been to antenna depth 6 hours previously, picked up the faint transmissions from UV ships and from the base itself, and her crew had dutifully noted them down before the sub had dived and continued on her patrol. Now they were mystified. Where the hell are the signals?

"So, comrade Admiral, we don't know where the hell the signals are."
"Aye, comrade. We haven't a clue. The transmissions have just gone dead as a doornail." The other Admiral of the Eastern Fleet shook his head. "I just don't understand it."
"Power fault? Equipment failure?" asked his senior. The junior admiral shook his head.
"It would have to be colossal. Total destruction of the main and backup generators, and the disabling of the battery systems and automatic beacons too. I assume they have auto-beacons anyway." The senior grunted.
"Wouldn't make the blindest bit of sense if they didn't. Not in the Atlantic." The two men nodded soberly. "When can we get a satellite pass over the last known position?" asked the senior, cautiously.
"In about...three hours. There's a realtime-capable EORSAT in the area too, but I doubt she'd pick up anything K-120 didn't."
"Send it over anyway," responded the senior with a wave of his hand. "And send an order to K-120 to see if he can close with the base."

BUMP for visibility/GIA's response

Bump #ii

Are you going to reply GIA or not?

Niiice.

Alright, since GIA apparently dropped off the face of the earth (or at least the face of this RP) his spot will be replaced. Another nation had already volunteered to do so, so we're going to start over. Please disregard all posts except the very first one.

Oh, and thank you Aztec Lands.

The blue-grey waves rolled slowly across the ocean while the pale clouds of the overcast sky billowed above so that on the distant horizon one could hardly distinguish where the ocean ended and the sky began. One might think they were trapped within a rolling grey sphere were it not for several large vessels plowing slowly through the waves, making their way through the international shipping lanes near the jurisdiction of Veritasean Atlantic Command.

There were nine ships in all, five were massive super-tankers, all of them were over 1200 feet long and the largest of them measured 1600 feet. Two vessels were Ro-Ro/Lo-Lo's each measuring about 500 feet in length and loaded down with container modules. The last two ships looked like large dry goods freighters measuring just under 800 feet each.

On the command island at the stern of the largest tanker, the Morgan LeFay, a figure stepped out of the bridge and into the cool salt breeze. The door that shut behind him made it obvious that this ship was no ordinary tanker. The door was almost two feet thick, mounted on reinforced hinges and secured by a pattern of four inch steel rods. The figure himself was a sight to behold. He wore a great blood red overcoat and his gristled face was covered with a dark auburn beard. Atop his head was an enormous hat that matched his coat in color. Numerous pistols hung from a bandolier that crossed his barrel shaped torso and the golden hilts of twin cutlasses protruded from underneath each side of his coat near his waist. Red Robert Graves smiled, his teeth revealed that he obviously lacked good oral hygiene. A life of piracy had made Red Robert filthy rich, and his amassed fortune allowed him to buy his own country. So far his investments had paid off. Piracy was flourishing and his cut of the profits had allowed him to build bigger and better pirate vessels. Greed fueled his thirst for plunder and even though the waters around his island nation were ripe with fat merchants he needed new hunting grounds if he was to remain competitive. The Veritasean Atlantic Command Station had not been a thorn in his side yet, but if he was going to plunder this area, he would have to cripple it.

He turned and walked to the port watch station and smacked the watchman on the back of the head, "Avast, ye mangy dog. Signal Bonnie May... Its time."

The crewman grabbed the shutter handle of his spotlight and began slamming out the letters in Morse code. In the distance a light twinkled on one of the large dry goods freighters acknowledging the signal. In a moment two large cargo doors had opened upward and a large crane was winching something out of the cargo hold. It was a Consolidated PBY. The plane was hoisted over the side and let down into the water and the cables were released and retracted. The props started spinning with a sputtering and then the engines chugged and whirled to life. A white wake appeared behind it as the plane took off and lifted itself into the sky.

Red Robert watched as the plane turned right and ascended into the clouds disappearing in the overcast sky. They were just over five hundred miles from their target and with any luck in a few hours their spotter would begin transmitting some coordinates.

(More to come. As I said last night in my TG, I figure since you said you had lost contact with the station then my plans, at least the initial phase, would be successful. I'll post more tomorrow unless you want to RP the PBY approaching the station.)

OOC: I lost contact with the station because of the attack so you might just want to add something about massive jamming or something along those lines. Other than that I'll await your next post.

The pilot of the PBY Catalina reached up and wiped a bit of fog from his window. His round pilot goggles hid much of his face as he peered through the glass. The drone of his engines overpowered most of the sound in the cockpit but he could still hear his copilot complaining through the headset he wore.

"Eh, they ain't nothin' out 'er but bloomin' clouds. What say we head back?"

"Ol' Graves would see us stretch if we did, that's what I say," the pilot replied. They had been heading toward the approximate location of the MOBO for over three hours, they should be getting close. For nearly the last hour they had been flying through the cloud tops, dodging the more ominous ones. The pilot leaned closer to the window, "Let's have a look." He called back to the radio operator and navigator. "Get ready, mates!"

A moment later the pale white belly of the plane dropped through the cloud cover. "There!" exclaimed the observer in the port gun blister.

Below and only about two miles away lay Unum Veritas Atlantic Command. "Do ye see the comm tower?"

"I've got the bloody comm tower... and the fuel dumps, aye aye... The lot of it," comments the observer, looking through a large pair of binoculars. He hands a strip of paper to the navigator who looks at it and then writes some numbers down for the comm officer to relay.

Suddenly the radio crackled with static, "Unidentified aircraft, this is Veritasean Atlantic Command, please identify yourself, over."

"Is 'e talkin' to us?" asked the copilot.

The pilot cut him a vicious look through his oversized goggles, "No, idiot, he's talkin' to me mum." He keys his external mic, "Ahoy Veritasean Atlantic Command. We be lost in this bloody drizzle, would ye kindly direct us to a refuelin' depot?"

Meanwhile about 460 miles south, the convoy of disguised pirate ships was eagerly awaiting the information they needed. Red Robert Graves stood inside the bridge now, looking at a chart when the data came in. High resolution digital photographs and GPS coordinates was all he needed to finish setting up his weapons. He stepped up to the 1MC and called out to his men, "Clear the deck! Make ready! Run out the guns! Smartly now, lads."

On the decks of the tankers the men hustled to get to the nearest hatch and climb down. The upper deck slowly parted in four places and folded up into the deck below revealing the ships main armament, twenty-four 16" guns in six quadruple mounts. These are not your grandpa's 16" guns either, they were fully modernized, using transverse light gas as propellant and capable of firing variable ordnance including hypervelocity scramjet assisted projectiles. The gun barrels elevated as the turrets turned to aim in the general direction of the target which was well beyond the horizon. The other four tankers also had these guns but they mounted only sixteen cannons in four quadruple mounts.

With a crack of thunder and a gigantic gout of flame the first shell blasted from the barrel. The individual guns were fired in rapid succession, alternating between turrets to minimize the tremendous stress that the weapons put on the superstructure.

A few moments later the PBY was still circling lower, well outside of the firing solution, pretending to acknowledge the Veritasean's offer to provide them with aviation fuel. He looked down at his watch and called back over the comm, "Make ready with the colors." He glanced back toward the MOBO just in time to see the first shell hit. There was an explosion in the midst of the base followed by the loud screaming of the projectiles as they cut through the air. More explosions rocked the base, hitting some of the surrounding ships also. From the gun blister on the side of the PBY, the observer tossed out a tethered flag, the black and white Jolly Roger and the solid red flag of 'No Quarter'.

"Morgan LeFay," the pilot called out, "Ye shots are landin' handsomely. Yer givin' 'em quite a floggin'. Looks like Hell's Kitchen, it does."

The copilot called out, "We've got some comp'ny." He pointed toward an cargo plane that just descended from the cloud cover. The pilot immediately responded, pulling back on his stick and jamming the throttle forward. The engines revved and the PBY banked skyward. The forward gunner opened fire with his dual .50 cal. sending a spray of bullets at the new target. "Dead men tell no tales," the pilot remarked, indicating the urgency with which the foe must be dispatched.

(OOC: I'll leave you to specify the damage done. About five volleys were fired toward the station and surrounding warships, so far.)

Shortly after making contact with the PBY needing fuel, the communicator notified his Watch Officer of the development. Standard protocol was to dispatch one of the jet fighters on CAP to shadow any non-Veritasean aircraft in the area, but the officer didn't feel this was necessary seeing as how it was only an antiquated seaplane. He gave the go-ahead for the plane to refuel and then went back to staring out the window and daydreaming-his usual pasttime. Had anyone from High Command seen such behavior he would have been decommissioned immediately, but inspections of this base were rare; the navy's higher echelons had too much faith in the commanding officer.

The officer's reverie was suddenly interrupted by a radar operator calling out,
"Incoming projectiles! Too small to be missiles, but are traveling at high speeds directly for the base!"

"Origin?" the officer demanded.

"Unknown, apparently from a few ships we hadn't paid any attention to," the operator responded.

"Activate the CIWS systems and dispatch ships to deal with those that just fired. Launch more aircraft!" the young officer nearly screamed. Technically none of those orders were his to give-he was only in charge of the communications tower-but the CIC would probably just now be getting the same information and he was slightly hysterical. It made little difference anyway; the shells found their targets before his orders or the information could be relayed to the CIC anyway.

Several shells hit the communications tower, destroying it immediately. Another volley took out both power stations and yet another managed to severely damage the barracks for the base's Marine contingent. The ships docked at the base all sustained damage: ranging from the crippling of an oiler and a frigate to the minor damage to a destroyer. Luckily the Marine LHD's, several aircraft carriers, and more of the offensive ships were out on patrols and excercises. Unfortunately four aircraft carriers were docked at the base and all sustained moderate damage to their flight decks, thus rendering them useless.

It took quite some time for the staff to come to terms with the fact that they were under attack. The remaining Marines reacted fastest, moving to their pre-determined defensive positions. The idea that the base might be attacked and/or invaded had occured to its planners and so the personnel had been trained for such an eventuality. The Marines began scattering into platoon-sized detachments and then spread across the base, guarding the entrances to the substructure.

Slowly the non-essential personnel made their way to a series of safe-rooms located on the bottom-most level of the base (at just about sea level). The high-ranking officers headed straight for the CIC rooms and the others went to their "battle stations". In a matter of thirty minutes the only people left on the top two levels of the structure were flight personnel. Interceptors and fighter bombers were being launched at breakneck speed but once airborne all they could do was circle until targets were found for them to engage. The people in the CICs were attempting to gain accurate enough information on the enemy ships to launch a counterattack, but the rough sea conditions were making it difficult (and last week's equipment-damaging hurricane hadn't helped).

An explosion suddenly rocked the southernmost portion of the base. The Marine platoon nearest to the area was dispatched to determine what it was. They radioed back that it was the remains of a Veritasean cargo plane that had been on final approach.

The CIC officers tried repeatedly to send messages back to High Command, but all of the communications towers had been destroyed, and the flickering power made it all the worse. They were, for the time being, completely on their own.

The disadvantage of the state-of-the-art long ranged weapons at the pirates disposal was that they now had to steam for the better part of a day to pillage the target. Red Robert was certain that he would run into enemy patrols before then. He had doubled the radar and sonar watch and about a dozen of his PBY's now flew in broad search patterns as his ships slowly began to move toward their prey. The PBY that had easily dispatched the cargo plane returned to its patrol, circling the base and relaying coordinates to the Morgan LeFay.

"There still be targets 'ere," the comm officer announced, pointing out some ships that had been damaged. The pilot pulled back on the flight-yoke, bringing his plane back up into the clouds. A few moments later another salvo fell, this time largely directed against the docks.

(It will take the freighters a long time, somewhere around 16 hours to sail all the way to the base to board it. They will move steadily toward the base until you tell me they have sighted it or they run into a patrol of some kind.)

"UVS Bolt to Atlantic Command, over," a communications officer on board the Veritasean Arsenal Ship said over the secure radio link. This was his fifth attempt to raise the base and his superiors were starting to get worried. Finally he was ordered to contact High Command, based on the main island of Unum Veritas, and get a sitrep. Information was still sketchy, but the ship, along with the others in its formation, was ordered to go to DefCon 1: assuming an attack had taken place and with permission to open fire on any non-Veritasean ship in the area.

Following standard procedure, the Arsenal Ship, the two AEGIS destroyers, and the pocket aircraft carrier switched their radars to active, lighting up the surrounding area and instantly getting a clear read of the ships in the vicinity. The order to go to DefCon 1 was also relayed to the Virginia Class attack sub traveling with the group which then maneuvered away from the group and began getting firing solutions on sonar contacts it came across.

The ships, now armed with a clear picture of the other vessels in the area, began feeding coordinates into tracking computers and missile guidance systems. The Bolt started prepping its Tomahawk missiles as well as its Exocets with the coordinates from its SPY radar. A few minutes later an analyst aboard the pocket aircraft carrier noticed a gathering of a few ships that appeared to be civilian in origin but were traveling in a straight path for the base. They did not have IFF transponders, so they weren't UV ships. This information was forwarded straight to the highest ranking officer in the group and orders went back down the line for the Arsenal ship to open fire. Five minutes later an initial salvo of 4 Tomahawks, 8 Exocets, and 5 BrahMos anti-shipping missiles arced up above the formation and sped away.

********************

Back aboard the Atlantic Command Base, the higher ranking officers were still attempting to get things in order when another salvo of munitions hit the docking bays, further damaging the ships. There was now only one ship left at the dock that appeared to be seaworthy. Any hopes of escaping the base were now lost.

The Marines began opening corridors and setting up supply routes. Their defensive plan was fairly straightforward: all elevators to lower levels would be set on the lowest floor and then deactivated, all stairways would be guarded by a contingent of Marines being continually fed ammo from stores within the base. All sea-level docking bays and entryways would be sealed off and boobytrapped.

In the primary CIC, officers were still attempting to rig up a device to communicate with High Command when one of them remembered he had a satellite phone in his stateroom. A Marine was sent to fetch it and returned in five minutes, clutching the phone triumphantly. Fifteen minutes later Minister Sterling (CO of the entire Imperial Navy) was getting a report on what had happened. Thirty minutes after that the High Chancellor received a briefing and then things really began moving.

"Blimey!" exclaimed the radar officer. "Missiles a'comin' in fast, sir! Port Astern!"

Red Robert slammed his thick hand down on the alarm button and a loud klaxon began wailing. "Avast, ye scurvy sprogs! Incoming missiles, ye know what t' do, ye bilge rats!"

Within seconds several of the containers aboard the Ro-Ro/Lo-Lo's had sprung open. Within some were pods of missiles and inside others were clusters of tubes. White plumes erupted from the pods sending grey-white streaks of smoke skyward as the interceptor missiles were launched. The tube-clusters ripple-fired thousands of tiny projectiles along the path of the anti-ship missiles almost like a CIWS Phalanx. In the distance there were several explosions as the interceptors found their targets and the anti-ship missiles ran into the wall of projectiles. The BrahMos missiles were the hardest to hit as they flew in much faster than the other two types. Three of them survived and arched downward to their targets. Two of them slammed into the tankers and fireballs rolled up from the aft sections of the ships, but their thick hides resisted any major damage. One more ripped into the stern of one of the Ro-Ro's. These vessels were built to survive, but the Ro-Ro's hull was not nearly as reinforced as the tankers and the explosion caused moderate damage to the engines.

"Report, ye addled swab!" Red Robert growled to the radar watchman.

"Enemy vessels, astern, sir! About 60 miles astern. One flat-top and some cruisers." He replied, still glued to his monitor.

"Heave to!" the pirate ordered and he felt his great ship begin to come about. "Start lobbing!"

On the deck of the tankers the guns once again sounded their thunderous report. The shells left the barrel with great flashes of fire and light and pieces of the discarding sabot splashed into the water several hundred yards downrange. They were firing 11" discarding sabot rounds from their 16" guns, with a range of just about 100 miles. Although they weren't nearly as accurate or powerful as the scramjet projectiles used earlier they were cheaper and could be fired much more rapidly and they still packed quite a wallop. In two minutes, three salvos had been fired, raining down a mixture of armor piercing and high explosive projectiles down on the enemy formation.

OOC: Terribly sorry it has taken me so long to reply; RL complications...

A radar officer watched as his ship's missiles honed in on the unidentified vessels and then remarked in surprise as a swarm of much smaller dots left his targets and began heading towards the Arsenal Ship.

"Captain?" the young man called, "We've got return fire from the UNID crafts. Appears to be shells rather than missiles."

"Alright," the Captain of the vessel responded, "Activate the CIWS systems and try to move us out of range. These munitions won't home so we have the advantage. All ahead full! Reverse course!"

The entire ship, following the Captain's orders, shuddered as its turbines were engaged. Several of the crew watched as the digital knot readout climbed steadily, until it surpassed 35. Suddenly the rudder was thrown to the side and the ship began to make a drastic 90 degree turn. The plan was to get as far away from its original position as possible in order to avoid both the well-placed shots and the poorly aimed ones.

Atlantic Command drops off the Net, we're ordered to fire on UNID's, and then they return fire...? What the hell is going on? the Captain wondered.

Back Aboard the Veritasean Atlantic Command Base
Things had grown eerily quiet. No new shots had been fired on the base and preparations against an assault had finally been completed. All that was left for the people on the base to do now was to wait for whatever would happen next. The hatches on the top of the base had all been secured and those that had not been boobytrapped were guarded by Marine contingents. All elevator cars had been sent to the lowest level of the base and then been deactivated. The nonessential personnel were set as close to escape bays as possible and could be off the base within a matter of minutes. What happened to them after that was anybody's guess.

At Veritasean Central Command
"We must consider the Atlantic base gone," an Admiral was telling the gathering of Naval advisors.

"What about all the ships we had based there?" another asked.

"Some were conducting exercises, luckily they were mainly our carriers and our amphibious assault ships," the first Admiral responded, "Unluckily most of our surface combatants along with several submarines were docked at the base and must be assumed to be out of commission."

"So, in summary, we have an unknown force that has attacked one of our strongest bases and basically rendered it useless. We must assume that they are going to invade and either finish it off or use it for their own purposes. We have basically no surface ships to use to attack their forces. But we have a bunch of aircraft that may or may not be of any use against their ships and we have a bunch of Marines sitting on ships that can't be used to take back the base because they'll be sitting ducks to enemy-ship fire?" one of the younger members of the group said loudly.

"That's about right," the first Admiral and most senior officer in the room replied.

"So what do we do?"

"We make contact with the forces we have left in the region, order more ships to transit from the Indian Ocean base to the Atlantic Ocean immediately, we find out who made the attack, and then we take back the base and take the fight to them."

Orders were sent out and information was slowly collected. Two Destroyer Strike Groups were ordered to leave the Indian Ocean and head to the Atlantic ASAP. All Veritasean forces were ordered to enforce a 200 mile maritime exclusion zone around themselves and all bases greatly increased their security. Forty-five minutes later the High Command had a good idea of what they had to work with in the Atlantic:
3 Elessar Aircraft Carriers
4 Wasp Class Amphibious Assault Ships
3 Helicopter Landing Ships
1 Arsenal Ship
1 Pocket Aircraft Carrier
3 AEGIS Destroyers

Robert Graves pounded his thick fist against the chart table. He was furious; none of his shells had fallen on target, it was almost unthinkable. He bared his brown teeth and growled, "So ye want to play, do ye. Well, I can oblige ye! Signal Red Dutchess n' Posideon's Wrath - fire at will! All ships-o-the-line, switch back to scram-rounds and fire a volley! Target that flat-top and missile cruiser, put yer backs into it lads!"

Aboard the two container transports that had been responsible for largely negating the previous missile attack, several other containers collapsed to reveal additional tubular launchers. Plumes of smoke erupted from the tubes as missiles streaked skyward to speed their merry way to their targets. Red Robert Graves didn't particularly like missiles, figuring they took all the fun out of battle, but he realized their potential in cases such as this and had planned on it. He had purchased a large supply of Soviet made ordnance and being a true pirate modified and built more of his own. A long range version of the SS-N-22 Sunburn and SS-N-26 Yakhont were the current weapon of choice. Both were supersonic and would be on their target in just under three minutes. The Sunburns were sea-skimming and would not switch to active radar until about 30 seconds before impact while the Yakhont flew higher but perform a pushover evasion maneuver before skimming the surface to their targets. Two missiles of each type were launched against each target.

In addition to the missiles, the large tankers once again fired a salvo of 88 shells, this time using the hypersonic scramjet rounds. Some were fired on a low trajectory so they would rip through the formation almost horizontally and the rest were fired with the normal artillery trajectory so they would plunge through the tender decks of their targets. With a flight time of less than one minute and the sophisticated guidance system of the shells the enemy would have little time to evade.