NationStates Jolt Archive

The planet of Concus IV, a planet of many ecosystems. Lush jungles, frozen tundra, dry deserts, and seemingly limitless amounts of water. To the educated scholar, it would be a likely candidate for a new earth, resembling it remarkably.

However, this is not the reason the newly formed Azahan Conglomerate seeks the planet. Hidden beaneath the land and water, hides the most valuable resource. Inumberable metals, and liquid resources to keep a war effort lasting for years. Not to mention its strategic location in galactic trade and commerce. Yes, a perfect location for the Conglomerate.

Captain Toshiro studied the topography of the planet from his command seat. He tapped a few keys into the pad, zooming in on a location.

Yes, he thought. The planet does look remarkably like Earth... except for that massive Volcano on the western hemisphere.

His command vessel was the ACS Faithless. A Fleet carrier that carried around 500 craft, and was 2.5 Kilometers long and was also adept at electronic warfare and communications scrambling.

With his ship, was the rest of the taskforce. Three dirge class destroyers, 500 meters long and designed to be capital ship killers, as well as being adept at point defense work. Then there were the troop transports. Totaling 4 ships, they carried 5 regiments within their hulls.

Four of the regiments were the standard compliment of soldiers. The fifth however were the semi-elite Isiah Dragoons, adept at jungle fighting and close in combat.

Their mission was to land on the planet, and construct a temporary outpost, safeguarding the planet until more advanced construction untis could arrive. It seemed to Captian Toshiro this would be an easy grab.

The planet of Concus IV, a planet of many ecosystems. Lush jungles, frozen tundra, dry deserts, and seemingly limitless amounts of water. To the educated scholar, it would be a likely candidate for a new earth, resembling it remarkably.

However, this is not the reason the newly formed Azahan Conglomerate seeks the planet. Hidden beaneath the land and water, hides the most valuable resource. Inumberable metals, and liquid resources to keep a war effort lasting for years. Not to mention its strategic location in galactic trade and commerce. Yes, a perfect location for the Conglomerate.

Captain Toshiro studied the topography of the planet from his command seat. He tapped a few keys into the pad, zooming in on a location.

Yes, he thought. The planet does look remarkably like Earth... except for that massive Volcano on the western hemisphere.

His command vessel was the ACS Faithless. A Fleet carrier that carried around 500 craft, and was 2.5 Kilometers long and was also adept at electronic warfare and communications scrambling.

With his ship, was the rest of the taskforce. Three dirge class destroyers, 500 meters long and designed to be capital ship killers, as well as being adept at point defense work. Then there were the troop transports. Totaling 4 ships, they carried 5 regiments within their hulls.

Four of the regiments were the standard compliment of soldiers. The fifth however were the semi-elite Isiah Dragoons, adept at jungle fighting and close in combat.

Their mission was to land on the planet, and construct a temporary outpost, safeguarding the planet until more advanced construction untis could arrive. It seemed to Captian Toshiro this would be an easy grab.

A small Task Force, dispatched to follow a caravan of transports to a new planned Fortress Planet, similar to Hell's Gate, Armageddon's Reach, or Granite Wall. Each housed a number of deadly units, and acted as a forward base on the Frontiers of Solari Space, through which fleets and armies could stage at need. For the most ambiguous of moments, the Solari ships did not exist, by any measurable perception. When they reappeared, they rapidly noted two thing. That the planet looked a whole helluva lot like Old Earth, and that they were not alone. Arriving nearly simultaneously, a number of foreign ships appeared in the system, also seeming to have the intent to claim the system. That simply was not on.

Solari Carriers and Destroyers, seeing this fact, acted swiftly.

That's our planet. They want it.

Rather obvious sir. Shall we warn them off?

The Transports should make all speed for the planet. We will interpose ourselves, and warn them off. If we make planetfall first, then they cannot hope to claim the planet.

Understood. I'll get them on it. Should we scramble?

Not yet. We'll wait till they initiate hostilities.

Transports turned away from the arrival point, many light minutes from the planet, and went to their maximum acceleration, doing their best to make something that might respectably be called a good speed. The warships escorting them turned to place their less than awe inspiring hulls between the planet, their charges, and this unknown pack of thugs.

"Multiple contacts! Capitol sized! Bearing 2-32-0, elevation 16. Ten total. Some appear to be transports, but the others are warships. Unknown variations." A 1st Class Petty Officer said from his console, taking the telemetry from his underlings.

Toshiro tapped his own console, and looked at the sensors. "Damn." He uttered. As he looked on, the transport ships appeared to floor it to the planet, looking as they they wanted to make planetfall very quickly. The warships however stood between them and the transports.

"Communications! Tell the troop transports to accelerate towards the planet, and start combat landing troops on the ground! The bastards think they can just sneak up and steal our planet!"

"Aye aye sir!" The petty officer responded. When the message was away, the transports hit full throttle. Inside the transports, dropships were rapidly loaded, and Valk gunships armed.

"Now send a message to those xenos! This planet is ours! Warn them off."

The message was the standard warning message. However, it was in a dialect of Latin, the Azahan language.

Attention. You are violating Conglomerate space. It has been seen as an act of aggression, and action will be taken if you do not vacate the premise immediatly.

"Multiple contacts! Capitol sized! Bearing 2-32-0, elevation 16. Ten total. Some appear to be transports, but the others are warships. Unknown variations." A 1st Class Petty Officer said from his console, taking the telemetry from his underlings.

Toshiro tapped his own console, and looked at the sensors. "Damn." He uttered. As he looked on, the transport ships appeared to floor it to the planet, looking as they they wanted to make planetfall very quickly. The warships however stood between them and the transports.

"Communications! Tell the troop transports to accelerate towards the planet, and start combat landing troops on the ground! The bastards think they can just sneak up and steal our planet!"

"Aye aye sir!" The petty officer responded. When the message was away, the transports hit full throttle. Inside the transports, dropships were rapidly loaded, and Valk gunships armed.

"Now send a message to those xenos! This planet is ours! Warn them off."

The message was the standard warning message. However, it was in a dialect of Latin, the Azahan language.

They're being raped in vacuum??? That's...nice?

It's apparently also extremely aggressive sir. They're going to beam us a video if we don't...forget the idea???

Unknown vessels..,. Your sexual misadventures do not interest us. Your presence here however, in violation of League territory, is highly problematic. If you remain, we will be forced to destroy your vessels. Any transmission of pornography will be interpreted as an act of war, and result in your destruction.

The carriers began to slowly emit Gunships. Hopefully the signatures were small enough, and far enough away, that no one would notice their appearance, or that there were now 120 tiny warships supporting the Carrier force.

"Gibberish! How dare they call our leader a goose! A GOOSE! They are clearly mocking us. Bring full combat systems to bare! Launch a combat air patrol. I want one Dirge guarding those transports!"

As he spoke, the bridge exploded into action. 45 Interceptors erupted from the hangers in rapid succession, launching all of them in the manner of 10 minutes. They orbitted the carrier, and screened for any attacks.

The carriers meager weapons systems, of light cannons and multiple PD turrets were activated, the light cannons gaining fuzzy target locks in the distant foes.

On the destroyers, torpedo tubes were loaded, and the projectile cannons loaded.

The ships held the position though. The act was simply meant to lure the enemy into making the first move.

On the transport side of things, it appeared to the small fleet that they would be arriving to the planet's orbit roughly the same time as the enemy's. Now it was critical to see who could land the most troops the fasted. However, the troops would undoubtably be unloaded opposite of each other on the planet, so it made little diference.

"Gibberish! How dare they call our leader a goose! A GOOSE! They are clearly mocking us. Bring full combat systems to bare! Launch a combat air patrol. I want one Dirge guarding those transports!"

As he spoke, the bridge exploded into action. 45 Interceptors erupted from the hangers in rapid succession, launching all of them in the manner of 10 minutes. They orbited the carrier, and screened for any attacks.

The carriers meager weapons systems, of light cannons and multiple PD turrets were activated, the light cannons gaining fuzzy target locks in the distant foes.

On the destroyers, torpedo tubes were loaded, and the projectile cannons loaded.

The ships held the position though. The act was simply meant to lure the enemy into making the first move.

On the transport side of things, it appeared to the small fleet that they would be arriving to the planet's orbit roughly the same time as the enemy's. Now it was critical to see who could land the most troops the fasted. However, the troops would undoubtedly be unloaded opposite of each other on the planet, so it made little difference.

And move they did. No sooner had the enemy scrambled their fighters than they were caught up in target locks. Solari ships regularly duelled at extreme ranges before closing, and while the fighters were fuzzy targets, the enemy ships were quite clear targets. Targets with a rather impressive number of guns pointed at them. Guns that pointedly did not fire, yet...

The Tranasports slammed into orbit almost simultaneously, but the Solari insertion method would give them at least a full regiment on the ground before the first dropships had been launched, as it was hard to match simply chucking units towards the surface in a manner similar to that employed by their main cannon, without the extreme power behind it. Dropships followed, slowly, giving the Seabees time to set up a serviceable landing area. It'd be necessary to clear a great number of trees, and no one did it faster than Seabeee exploives technicians...

When the unknown force began to land troops, so did the Azahan forces. From high orbit, dropships poured out of the bays of the ships. Small dropships carrying troops, and large dropships carrying logistical support and warmachines screamed towards the surface. Their mission was to secure a perimeter around the planned landing area.

They quickly chose a temperate region. far to the west of the landing area was a great forest, and to the east, a vast inland sea. Where they were landing, was an expansive stretch of grasslands, with little hills and plantlife besides the long grass.

It didn't take long for the dropships to reach their locations, and small fire camps were set up. Some from the construction battalion began to construct makeshift command and control centers, as well as communications centers to guide in the transports.

As the base was being constructed, the five large transports slowly began to drift towards the surface. The 1.3KM long behemoths settled on a gentle slope downward, their destination was the grassland that was now being secured. In them, carried the ground forces. Only the advanced ranger battalions were launched.

Meanwhile, in space, the Faithless was still abuzz.

"They aren't making any moves yet sir. Sensors pick up fuzz forming around what seem to be carriers. They may have launched fighters of some sort."

Damnation, Toshiro thought. They aren't going to break this off, but neither are we.

"Start jamming their communications. Jam all analogue, establish sensor nets to figure out what other kind of communication method, if any, they are using."

As he finished, the long attenaes and radar dishes on the great carrier came online. The ship was designed and built to be a fleet carrier, and an electronic warfare ship, both tasks it performed beautifully.

"Call the Undying Guilt, he is to remain on station above the landing site. The Godless and Blatant are to form an echelon formation witht he Faithless. And for god's sake, fire a warning shot off their biggest ship's bow. Coax them damnit."

On the Blatant, the large turret aimed at the unknown fleet, and fired a single shot from its trippled gunned turret, set on a trajectory to miss the lead ship by a kilometer, and missing the other ships completely.

I think they're trying to jam us...

MOTHERFUCKERS!!!

While the warning shot did indeed miss the leading Carrier, Gambier Bay, it managed to quite handily HIT one of the Gunships nearby. Said Gunship, while not destroyed outright, was the next best thing to scrap. Turrets rotated with blistering speed, locked onto the enemy ship, and more than 3,000 tons of solid metal was set to intersect on the location it currently occupied. 3,000 tons of solid metal, that was suddenly closing on the ship at an appreciable fraction of c. The Solari ships had reacted with their usual dispatch in a hostile situation. Blow the fuck out of the enemy, before moving in and picking it apart.

Setting up just within the treeline, Solari Engineers rendered the nearby trunks, massive in a way found only in the oldest of forests on earth, into a hasty palisade, while placing foxhole charges for the infantry to make into their own forward entrenchments, and preparing berms of packed earth so that their tanks could get hull down. Transports dove through the atmosphere, spewing drop ships and landers like no tomorrow. While less rapid inn deploying their entire force, the work done by the engineers in preparing their position and forward base would be priceless. Only a few minutes faster in their arrival than the Azahans, they would hopefully be done hours earlier, with the assistance of their equipment, and their ganging the line dogs and cannon cockers to help them. The armor wasn't touched by the engineers, no matter how much help a few tanks would have been in clearing an area, instead, they moved out, rumbling across the grasslands, low slung, ominous, and deadly, to get a fast look at the enemy base, and harass the enemy builders.

"Target locks! Weapons fire! Projectiles incoming. ETA 3 seconds!"

All ships started to scatter. A few stray shots slammed into the shielded hull of the Faithless, leaving no damage. However, the Blatant took the bulk of the fire. The screaming shells ripped through the shields, and slammed into the lightly armored hull. Explosions ripped through the stern of the ship, disabling most of its propulsion.

"Damage report!"

"None taken to the Fiathless sir, but the Blatant has taken extensive damage. She reports medium casualties, and their propulsion is shocked. They are only at 30% thrust."

"Very well. ECM, activate the target scramblers. Communications, all ships are to form around the Blatant. We are to put the planet between us and them. Repair crews, prepare to depart ship for the Blatant."

As the ships pulled away, the Faithless began to broadcast powerful target lock scramblers, hopefully preventing the enemy from getting a good lock and firing again.

On the ground, the airfield was completed, and the gunships were being stored. Parts of the transports were beign removed in order to construct other buildings, like the command center, and armored hangers. Most notably, the small point defense projectile weapons on the ships were being set up as entrenched firing platforms. Some were already being shipped out to the outposts apart from the airfield.

As the troops finished unloading, everyone was chipping in on helping create the base, most importantly, their barracks and armories.

Meanwhile, five gunships, loaded with a squad of troops each roved the air around the field, reaching out and past the outposts, keeping an eye out for any enemy units. Each gunship was loaded to the brim with rockets and missiles.

Groundside, scout units fanned out beyond the outposts, setting up their own observation posts, but most were spanning out to search for the enemy base.

Day 1, 1200 hours(noon) has started.

Gunships came screaming in, depending on the shock of the first volley to allow them to close and finish off the crippled ship, and survive the experience. Their target locks were much fuzzier now, but still they fired, taking angles that would carry their shells past the planet were they to miss, or at the least send their shells into a large body of water.

The Destroyers and carriers held back, to allow their supporting Gunships time to work, and to avoid smiting their own units with fire. Instead of firing, they attempted to burn through the jamming, and gain hard target locks so they could turn their missiles against the opposing ships.

Planet Side:

13:47, Day 1

And here we go...

Yup.

Let's rock.

Whoo hoo! Ready to make shit die!

Who put him in charge of anything?

I did. Shut it.

Oh. What crack were you on that day?

The good stuff. Now, you two take your regiments and move out. Keep me informed about anything you find. If you don't find anything, keep me informed. Half hourly reports. Roll out.

Aiight.

If I must.

You must. The rest of you, we have to keep digging in. I want the Transports to come in and provide us with some prefabs so we can set up a real base.

The bustle of activity continued, and even intensified, as the troops prepared their positions, built rough barracks and shelters from local trees, and started on their real base, approximately a quarter mile south, away from the trees, where they could set up an effective AA net, and other such useful things.

In high orbit, the small task force lead by Toshiro continued to curve around the planet. The jammers they had in place were abundantly strong, and would take careful work, and long hours to disable. The down side of course that such a powerful jammer prevented the Azahan ships from firing back at the capitol ships, unless they reverted to a much less powerful jammer. But that would open the floor up for that to be burned through. The main problem now was those little ships.

On a dime, the interceptors turned around and started for the gunboats. As the more powerful fighters were setting up to be launched, the interceptors launched themselves at the gunboats. They fanned and jinked either which way, firing their short range low yield rockets and plasma cannons at the gunboats. Meanwhile, the capitol ships fired their own PD fire. The short range made it possible to aim and fire without the use of computers, so the jammer did not affect these guns.

1915 Day 1

After some hours of working the high speed, high altittude fighters that they had brought with them were now ready. The runway that was being constructed out of local materials, something that resembled asphalt was not yet complete. A makeshift runway made out of metal grates was ready however, and a squadron of four jets screamed off the ground.

The four Imperial Lightning Strike Fighters went high and fast, and then split up. Their mission was recon, but they could reach far and wide, and see much more then the gunships and Valks could. Not to mention they had air to ground ordinance should they come across enemy emplacements, as well as a couple of air to air armaments.

On the ground, the only pieces of armor the Azahan force had was being set up. They were Basalisk artillery pieces, able to lay down a bone shattering spread of fire, ranging from inferno rounds, to anti-personel rounds, to anti-armor rounds. And of course the coup de gras, the Earth Shaker rounds, the largest, and most powerful non-nuclear explosive the old Azahan Imperium possessed. Of course the new Conglomerate had more powerful explosives, but this mission wasn't deemed an Alpha priority. So they got the old equipment that was some hundred years old. However the men were trained on it, this deadly.

Construction still continued however. It wouldn't be long now until they were complete, a few days or so.

Gunships, normally heavily disadvantaged against swarming enemy ships, had a nasty surprise in store for the Interceptors. Designed to defeat kythons, missiles, and other nimble, yet numerous opponents, the Solari 100 ton "Space Buckshot" round was a rather smallish bullet. On the other hand, it put several million 00 Buckshot pellets into the void, at an appreciable fraction of lightspeed. It had the ability to act as both primary weapon, last ditch point defense, anti-turret weapon, anti-sensor weapon, and all number of other neat tricks. PD weapons from the opposing capitol ships slammed home, tearing away at shields and armor, and occasionally picking off a sensor or similarly exposed electronics equipment. Tiny vessels dodged and weaved through the hail of fire, occasionally launching a shot towards the Azahan Interceptors, spewing buckshot in a quantity that would have made hunters of the 21st century more than envious.

The Destroyers followed along behind, training their guns on the Interceptor cloud that was engaging their only air support. The loss of all of their gunships would not only make things harder on the ground, it would make things harder up in space. That was simply not on, and when Destroyers cut loose with their own 5 gun broadsides of space buckshot, it was hoped that the gunships, now reduced a bit in numbers, could disengage and head groundside to provide air support, which would be quite useful in the coming weeks, while the Destroyers and Carriers attempted to blow the hell out of the Azahans.

-Groundside- 22:26, Day 1

So, how goes the whole "building a base"?

My Seabees have got things quite under control. As far as outer works go, the only thing we're short on is Chromsten. We've got a fairly solid wall of ceramcrete, with a Chromsten backing, but it's smaller than hoped, and we can't put the Chromsten backing in out Firebases, but we have a well defensible position. Several hills are being prepared as forward defenses, and we've got some quick stuff for the infantry, which we plan to upgrade over the next few days.

In other words there are a million things that can go wrong, you just have no idea what they are yet.

Basically.

Good. What of the Artillery?

We've got that covered too. The original ready make fort is going to be shored up with ceramcrete, and we'll be turning it into out FCC. The Mobile Rocket systems will also be based there. 155s, 120s and 60s will all be deployed as best suits our final defensive works. Looking like the 120s will be back here, while we put the 60s and 155s on the forward fire bases. It's suboptimal, but the heaviest stuff will have similar flight ties if we do things right, and it'll give us some very nasty FPF on the positions we have ready for the armor.

So...you're saying we don't have enough guns for this? A bit unsettling. I thought we shipped out with an excess of artillery.

I think I can answer that. A few of the tracks aren't working at the moment. We have the guns, but no way to get them anywhere, beyond flying them.

Figure it out. I'm going to talk to the tankers. Y'all have fun being inventive.

-Several Minutes Later-

You shot a WHAT!?

I swear it was the biggest lizard I've seen in my life! Fucking huge! Took 2 shots to kill it!

Main or Co-ax?

Co-ax...

Pussy

SHUT IT! I'm splitting us all the way down to platoons. Command platoon takes the company Tiger, while the rest go with 3 Leopards each. I figure that with the 2 Command platoons heading the most central routes, they'll be most likely to encounter resistance. The other 2 Command platoons are taking the farthest divergent routes, to give us some serious power on our flanks The final 2 Command Platoons are going to take routes between the extremes, giving me a QRF that can respond in either direction at need. I'm not gonna go out more than 2 days before heading back.

You know you're inviting defeat in detail if any of your platoons gets overwhelmed without you finding out until after the fact.

Yup. On the other hand, it makes me alot more likely to actually find SOMETHING.

Your funeral.

And with that, 54 tanks, some larger than others, split into a seeming hash of units, spreading across the flat grasslands like an iron net, ready to catch anything. Other tanks, small infantry formations, lowflying aircraft, *BLAM!*...extremely large lizards...

Hey! The main gun really does work better!