NationStates Jolt Archive

News of war had weighed down heavily upon the Confederacy. This was not the first time the nation would fall under attack by outside forces. They have been attacked before, by many more nations than the five that were assembled against them, but this invasion would most likely test the defenses of the Confederacy to their fullest. These five nations were far more powerful than those of past conflicts. These nations were selected as part of the anti-CA coalition each based on their merits. Most frightening of all the forces, perhaps, was the Questerian navy. The Questerians had one of the best, if not the best, navies in the world, and were now sailing towards the Confederacy with the intent to bring it to its knees.

All up and down the coastline, millions of soldiers began to ready their defences. Getting the enemy troops to shore would be a feat in itself for the Coalition forces. Two miles out, a massive naval minefield had been laid, with the intent of stopping the enemy ships before getting to the shore. A mile out at sea, a massive sand bar was built. Along the top of the sandbar were massive steel barricades, built to halt the advance of the transports. A half a mile from shore, hundreds of old freighters and other merchant ships were sunk, forming a solid sea wall all along the coast. Aboard each scuttled vessel were dozen of men, all carrying RPG's, machine guns, and a number of other explosive weapons. A hundred yards from the shore, massive barbed wire covered conrete blocks stood in a staggered formation as yet another impediment to Coalition transports. Twenty yards from shore, also in a staggered formation, were large wooden towers, rising about four feet above the water line. On top of each tower was a chair, giving the towers the resemblance of a lifeguard chair. Each chair was equipped with a .50 machine gun, to slaughter soldiers as they tried to swim to shore. Finally, the last obstacle before making it ashore. Four fences of razor wire seperated the land from the sea right at the shoreline. The enemy ships would have to make it to shore all the while being pummeled by thousands of various pieces of artillery.

And that was all just in the water...

On land, ten million Confederate, Griffincrest, DSAM, and militia forces had piled up into trenches pushed a hundred and fifty yards back from the last razor wire fence. Along the trenches, forty thousand Metal Storm area denial systems were set up. Between them and the water, men had layed literally millions of Maccabean made ATG-44 anti-tank landmines and rolled in thousands of Czech hedghogs to make armour delivery most bothersome. As for the anti-personnel aspect, Blackhawk helicopters flew up and down the beach, dropping hundreds of millions of tiny BCA-1 plastic scatterable mines. These mines, about the size of a sugar packet, were not designed to kill a man, but rather to blow of a toe or a chunk of the enemies foot, thus maiming him and possibly causing him to fall onto even more of the mines.

The anti-air defenses were just as powerful. Three thousand AAD-1 anti-air balloons formed defensive rings around the entire country, maintaining a vigilant watch over the nations borders. Two thousand M1939 37mm automatic antiaircraft guns lined the coast, along with several thousand 88mm and Kraven built 120mm ETC flak cannons. Another two thousand S-400 SAM systems and a hundred Firestorm missile systems maintained their watch of the skies as well, prepared to down any incoming plane or missile that appeared on the screen. And finally, to maintain air control, the pride of the Confederacy. The Confederate Defense Directory was a massive defense system recently installed by Phoenix Dynamics up and down the coast. It consisted of one thousand anti-air batteries, each containing a number of top of the line anti-air and anti-missile systems. All of the batteries would link back up to the main Directorate control room, deep underground in a bunker on Sacrament National Airbase.

And so now, the forces would wait. The Confederate/Griffincrest navy sat in the Bay of Neptune, all awaiting the coming storm. DSAN still remained in port, not wanting to face another Infinite Crucible disaster. Overhead, satelites began to move into postions, as well as a group of Solar Sailors. These were put up their to intercept a God Rod assault by destroying the rod with a massive railgun attack before the rod entered the atmosphere. Back in Sacrament, the Confederate Air Fleet waited patiently for their opportunity. All of the men of all of the armed forces of the Confederacy were all sure that this conflict would end like all the others.

OOC: Hey Blackhelm! Anything new happening in the CA?

The Toopoxican forces donated to defending Griffencrest had driven up to the shore off the large ferries, there were many lorries each carrying four P2 Fighter Jets armed with CK Missiles, amongst this taskforce was a small force of soldiers, mostly just drivers but they still had the ability to fight if pushed.
IndentCommander Reskav had ventured off ahead to locate the Confederacy military in this are and locate an area to deploy, refuel and rearm the Fighters, of course he had other things on his mind aswell, the Republic was in war again with Smorrg and he would have rather been there than here, still he needed get into contact quickly.

The commander for the Paradise City Theater approached the Toopoxians. "Nice to see that we haven't been forsaken by our allies eh! There is a military airstrip about twelve miles inland. I'm sure that these plane can be right at home there."

The commander than lit a cigarrette and looked back to the Toopoxians. "Where are my manners! My name is Cornelius Goldshield, commander for this theater...and you are?"

Commander Reskav extended his hand, "Commander Gregor Reskav, thank you for letting us use these lands." He responded whilst pulling out his ciggy and lighting it, "I will have our forces deployed immediatly."

Commander Reskav extended his hand, "Commander Gregor Reskav, thank you for letting us use these lands." He responded whilst pulling out his ciggy and lighting it, "I will have our forces deployed immediatly."

"No sir, thank you." Commander Goldshield replied to Commander Reskav.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, deep in the jungles of the Confederacy, the Communist Workers Party sat in their cavern hideouts. Men stood around holding a variety of weapons, mostly AK-47's or Atp12 SMG's. At a table in the center of the hideout was a table, around which sat several men wearing old brown military uniforms. Finally, one spoke up. "Despite the want for change within the Confederacy, we once again must stand up to defend it. We still have an active airbase near the Divinity mountain range, and several Katyusha batteries are scattered throughout the jungle."

Another old man spoke up. "So what is the plan? Surely you do not want to assist directly! To go toe to toe with their air forces would ruin us, those planes were left here by the Soviet Union, they would stand no chance if we sent them up against the enemy!"

The first man spoke again. "No, of course not. The plan will be to use the fighters in that base as something of an air pirate force. If they manage to establish a beach head and contruct an air force, we can at least try and do our part and attack their supply lines."

"And what of the Katyusha's General?" a younger man said.

"Scatter them in the jungle, make sure they remain under the netting until absolutly necessary. They will assist us in guerilla attacks should the enemy breach the coast. We will make this invasion hell for them. Now gentlemen, I believe that we should begin rallying the troops"

And with that, thousands of Communist guerillas began gathering throughout the country. CWP trucks were passing out assault rifles, RPG's, and land mines, and booby traps were being set up. Even if the Confederate government gave up, these men would not, nor would any of the other dozen or so militias across the nation.

Whyatican Staging Point, Fyre Sea Fortress, Haven
“Soldiers!” yelled the voice of Grand Admiral Richard M. Nixon’s disembodied head over the intercom system. Every soldier, sailor, or person otherwise started listening to the systems, for yet another of Nixon’s almost-copyrighted Jowly Speeches.

“Men, for many of you this will be the most important thing you do in your lives. Today we exterminate one of the most heinous examples of evil in the world, the Blackhelm Confederacy. You and your fellow soldiers will be immortalized in the halls of Whyatican history as brave men who served their Empire well. Keep up the work, men, and I’ll see you all in the halls of victory.”

Jowly speeches were notoriously short.

Moving on. One of the mightiest war fleets ever assembled in the Whyatican Empire’s…past… six months of history had been brought together in the Fyre Sea Fortress, comprising 2,912 combat vessels, trailed by hundreds of amphibious assault ships and other supply ships. As if this fleet itself wasn’t expensive enough – added on were not one, but two oversized phalli of the seas, the Hood class battleships. Oversized sea-phalli were not deployed even alone unless it was a serious war, so either this war was one of the most serious the Whyatican Empire would ever see, or the High Command had vastly overestimated the Blackhelm defenders. Likely a bit of both. Added onto the massive logistical strain of this operation was the mind-numbing complexity of the command and control – Nixon’s rambling speeches had to go through literally hundreds of thousands of speakers, which would give anyone a headache thinking about it.

The fleet finally departed after nearly a month of preparation, which is still absurdly low for the mobilization of this force, but is better than the ‘HEY THREE DAY MOBILIZATION!’ of most similar states. Hopefully the forces of The Silver Sky and whatever other nations decided to spring up would leave too..

Whyatican Unity Gun Installation A, Caladan, Whyatica
The Unity Gun was one of the coolest toys the Imperial military had: Able to fire at targets a world away at a decent rate of fire, difficult to intercept, and damn scary to soldiers that don’t know where it’s coming from. The Grand Imperium itself controlled 700 Unity Guns around the mainland, and other coalition nations undoubtedly had more. The first salvo was targeted in spread formations of the Blackhelm beach, where their forces were massing to resist the coalition landing. The bombardment would last for one hour, then giving the Unity Guns six hours to cooldown and do maintenance, and then another hourlong bombardment. As the first salvo fired, five idiots who hadn’t worn ear protection went deaf. Natural selection at it’s finest.

The air around the Confederacy was very well defended. Six rings formed a defensive border around the nation, each ring containing five hundred AAD-1 anti-aircraft balloons. The Confederate fleet sat between the third and fourth rings, and in it were many hundreds of ships designed to protect the skies. Between the fourth and fifth rings, a good piece of the Confederate Air Fleet floated. These ships were made to keep the sky safe as well.

When the first shells began to appear on the monitors of the first ring, High Command began to issue the response. The massive shells would surely have a high temperature from the speed and energy required to propel such a large object across the world. Due to this high level of heat, these shells would be easy targets for the heat seeking missiles of the AAD-1's. Each of the three thousand balloons began tracking the shells and as soon as they were within range, they opened up, firing four missiles a piece. As the twelve thousand missiles would scream into their targets, the air ships and navy prepared their own systems. As the remaining shells passed over the Navy or under the Air Fleet, they too began to blast away at the over sized blobs of metal that flew through the sky. Several thousand more heat seeking missiles were fired off, causing even more shells to explode in the air.

Finally, the shells would approach the shore. Here, anti-missile and anti-air systems were at their thickest. After the failed invasion by TPF, the Confederates realized that enemy arsenal ships would be a problem because of their ability to lob missile after missile onto the beach. To protect against this, many, many new pieces were placed along the coast. The Confederate Defense Directory began to kick into gear, firing thousands of missiles at the shells. S-400's and numerous other missile launcher began to open up as well, destroying even more of the shells.

Despite all of the defenses, several shells had made it through, crashing down amongst the soldiers who had dug in to protect their homeland. Hundreds of men were killed up and down the beach in the attack, thousands more injured. Ambulances began to carry away the dead and wounded as half-tracks began to bring up National Guard troops to replace those lost.

While we would be willing to help Blackhelm, we are currently finding ourselves under attack from the Most Annoying Empire of Hataria and her allies. As such, we cannot send aid.
May God Bless the Confederacy.

Space, Whyatican Lagrangian Battlestation
"Greetings." the voice of the disembodied head of Commander Leonard Nimoy said over the integrated PA system of the allied fleet.

Nimoy had died in a Whyatican hospital two years ago, his heart giving out of disease and too many "Star Trek" conventions. Sensing a potential marketing opportunity, the Whyatican military paid Van Buren Biotech industries to make the head living again in a jar, similar to that of Richard Nixon. The first hope was that this would inspire the many geeks hanging around Whyatican basements to enlist. However, for some reason, when Nimoy was brought back to life after his temporary death, he was a little bit depressed about his new living situation, and interested himself in the spacedy programs of the Whyatican Empire. Not content with merely being a figurehead (no pun intended) for the Whyatican military, Nimoy enlisted in the Imperial Space Command and became an officer. He now commanded the first allied flotilla to ever engage an enemy, the fact that made his little floating head proud.

"There is a Blackhelm Confederacy flotilla just 4,000 klicks ahead of us," Nimoy said, his voice box scrambling a word here and there, as it had to be maintenanced.

"Huntingdon, Westminster, and the Skyian main combatant are going to be providing main K support, as the Confederate ships are incapable of withstanding hypervelocity impacts. Whyatican Gorgon Is will be diverting attention from the Confederate missile sats and Skyian Gorgons will escort the main capitals. All main combatants should be ready to maneuver as quickly as possible. We go on red alert now. Move out." Nimoy said, cutting off the transmission so he could get his voice box looked at.

His little go-kart rolled through the command room of IWSS Huntingdon, looking for a technician as the allied fleet began it's first maneuvers. In the formation, three Huntingdon class heavy combatants formed the centre, escorted by 13 Skyian and 20 Whyatican Gorgon-class frigates. Half the Whyatican Gorgons were the mk 2 type, but all had space-to-space combat modular weapons packs. The forward guns of the three largest combatants charged, moving slightly to compensate for their target's motion, and unloaded a full salvo, eighteen 155mm hypervelocity railgun shells. Following that, several bomb-pumped GRASER torpedoes launched from the Gorgon frigates, which would get within a predetermined range of their target and then fire the one-shot GRASER.

The space superiority of the Coalition would be ensured!

The Confederacy had never really had a major battle in orbit, but that didn't mean that they were unprepared for one. Twenty five Solar sailors, each of them equipped with eight 6 inch railguns moved in to engage the Whyatican space forces. The commanding officer of each sailor stared out at the vast expanse, and prepared himself for what was about to come.

Missile satelites began to target the space craft as well, and soon several hundred missiles were screaming throught the empty space headed for the largest ships. Other satelites let loose their cargo as well. This cargo, however, was not in the form of a missile, but rather a small pod. The pod was designed to make impact with the ship, and a large shaped charge would than explode, tearing a hole in the enemy vessel and allowing the men in the pod to board the ship. Several hundred space marines sat aboard the pods. None of them had ever thought that they would actually be called to battle, and each one of them feared what wpuld happen if even the slightest thing went wrong during the boarding process.

From the earth, MiG-31's armed with ASAT's began to take off. They were going to be targeting Whyatican and other Coalition member satelites in an attempt to not only blind them, but also to prevent any Space-Land assaults. The main target would be anything capable of launching a God Rod or a missile. Spy Sats would come after. Seven hundred MiG's would take off from Sacrament Air Base, each armed with a pair of missiles.

[Skyian Unity Gun Installation 150-II, Near San Garcia, The Silver Sky]

The Unity Gun, possible the funnest thing to ever come out of the Armed Republic of Mekugi. The weapon had been distributed throughout the various APOC Member states, and even though The Silver Sky had resigned from APOC, they joined 'The Mekugian Commonwealth' to keep access to these weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, the Republican Military kept a healthy stockpile of Unity Gun MkIIs. They would soon be joining their Whyatica brothers in the fight. A total of 400 Installations of 800 guns would be joining in the fun, the entirety of the Skyian Arsenal.

It had been six hours since the Whyaticans had made their initial statement. And it was time to begin a second lethal arguement. Unity Guns spat our their deadly accurate points at Blackhem, planning to sweep a path from the minefields to the shore, blasting apart sandbars, mines, ships and troops with Mach 18.4 shells weighing 12,300kg and loaded with 1,500kg of HMX.

A total of 700 Whyatican guns, placed under Skyian Command, and 800 Skyian Guns would be firing shells at a rate of 6 Rounds per hour, with 1,500 shells in a salvo, 18,450,000kg of metal would rain down on the enemy every ten minutes, including 2,250,000kg of HMX explosives.

There would be nothing left on the beaches, mines, guns, people, ships, all would be demolished. They were very hard to intercept, coming in at MIRC speed, (Mach 18+) they would evade all but dedicated TBM and ABM defences.

[Skyian Staging Point, Fyre Sea Fortress, Haven]

The Skyian Armada assembled for the operation was the largest in history, and larger then even the Whyatican Fleet. All of the Skyians Expeditionary Combat Vessels, 3,273 of them, including three 'Kraken'-Class Siege Dreadnoughts (http://z14.invisionfree.com/TSSTechCentral/index.php?showtopic=172). These fearsome vessels of mass destruction are designated, SRNS 'Kraken', SRNS 'Cthulhu', and SRNS 'Hydra'.

The fleet consisted of the Three formentioned Siege Dreadnoughts, Eighteen 'Hyperion'-Class Assault Dreadnoughts, Thirty-Two 'Majestic'-Class Trimaran Hyper Carriers, Sixty Ravager-Class Trimaran Dreadnoughts, Sixty 'Invulnerable'-Class Trimaran Fleet Carriers, 432 'Spiritus Dei'-Class Trimaran Heavy Cruisers, 432 'Shalrirorchia'-Class Trimaran Guided Missile Cruisers, 504 'Comberth'-Class Trimaran Heavy Destroyers, 504 'Union'-Class Trimaran Guided Missile Destroyers, 432 'Swordfish'-Class Trimaran Guided Missile Frigates, 432 'Dolphin'-Class Trimaran ASW Frigates, and 360 Jörmungandr-Class Nuclear Attack Submarines.

They were 'escorting' 1080 various other logistical and transport ships, including 240 combat transport ships and 120 troop transports. They carried nearly a million marines, ready to make their mark in history once again. The carries carried over 38,400 aircraft and helicopters, and well over 2,855,580 sailors.

History would go down, oh yes, history would go down.

[Space]

Skyian Brilliant Pebbles and MIRACL satellites bore the brunt of the enemy space attack, thousands of watermelon sized brilliant pebbles and MIRACL beams sweept the sky of The Confederacies missiles, pods and ASATs in the defence of god-rod satellites, and the coalition space forces, although several MIRACL satellites were taken down as were a few overt spy satellites and four god rod satellites.

The MiG's were constantly landing, re-arming, and being sent skyward to keep a consistnet hail of missiles streaking into the sky to down the Coalition satelite systems. Thousands of ASAT's were flying into space at any given time. The Solar Sailors had now begun to open up with their 6 inch railguns as well, and several hundred shells would soon be screaming into the enemy space vessels. Pods were now making contact and blasting into Skyian and Whyatican craft, and even more missiles were being fired from the missile satelites.

On the ground, and in the air, missile systems had repeated the same actions they had done previously, and thousands of more missiles were sent to intercept the oncoming hail of shells. Once again, a large number of shells made their way through and landed along the one thousand mile long beach. This still barely phased the Confederate forces. Even though several hundred more men were killed, thousands more wounded, and the sand bars and mine fields damaged, these could all be replaced. Blackhawk helicopters again filled the sky dispersing mines over the areas that had been affected by the barrage, engineers were being ferried out on barges full of sand to replace the bars, and ambulances took away the dead and wounded while National Guard and militia forces were brought to replace them.

Confederate High Command had decided long ago that they adopt a doctrine in which bombardment did little to damage their lines. They kept groups sufficiently spread out, and replacements for anything that could be destroyed were never very far away. And so, the Confederates would weather the barrage, and await the cowards to actually show themselves rather than attempt to bombard the men into submission.

[Well, I'm taking the place of Questers, I guess. I think we're going to need an OOC thread.]


It had been a long time since the Imperium had wielded its sword against slavers and indeed no slaver had ever felt the full might of the Imperium bear down upon it. Blackhelm would not, either, although potential existed for the likes of Kraven and other Corporate Alliance nations to feel the entirety of the Imperium's wrath. It was even possible Blackhelm could avoid military action entirely, if they but acceded to the Imperium's demands. Nobody thought it was likely, given the harshness of the demands to be issued, but slavers would be given no quarter.


..::Class 5 Diplomatic Message, No Encryption::..
TO: The Incorporated States of the Blackhelm Confederacy's Government
FR: Duchess Sadira Saleh, Director of Foreign Services
SUB: Our Demands

The Imperium finds it disgusting that not only does slavery still exist in an technologically advanced world, where robots can do the work of people for a far cheaper cost, but that it flourishes in capitalist societies. Leaving aside the moral repugnance of such activities, the Imperium would've thought that the relative cost effectiveness mechanized labor versus enforce servitude would've been obvious to the various government of a corporatist alliance. That it hasn't only validates my belief that evil is a form of insanity. However, I digress. On behalf of Her Imperial Majesty, I present the following demands to the government of the Confederacy of Blackhelm:

1) All Confederate forces are to immediately stand down from their positions, return to their bases, and desist from further operations. Failure to comply will result in the Imperial Armed Force beginning immediate offensive operations.

2) The sitting government of the Confederacy of Blackhelm is to remand itself into the custody of the Imperial Investigation Service on charges of Piracy (Trafficking Sentient Beings.) Failure to comply will result in the Imperial Armed Force beginning immediate offensive operations.

3) All slaves are to be immediately released from the forced servitude and be given decent quarters, clothing, and meals until such time as Imperial Investigation Service agents can ascertain their condition. Failure to comply will result in charges of Attempted Murder and Conspiracy To Commit Murder being brought against any slave supervisor and their staff.
..::End Class 5 Message::..


**********


The Imperium was not, of course, about to stand still waiting for the slavers to comply. Already two dozen Expeditionary Fleets were under way to rendezvous fleets gathering in the Fyre Sea. Two were already in the Fyre Sea area, based in the Duchy of Sula, and the other two were in the wrong ocean and wouldn't be contributing to this operation. Also, nearly 600 submarines, independent of the Expeditionary Fleets, would be infesting the waters around Blackhelm and hunting anything with a Confed flag. Thousands of bombers were being checked over and loaded with missiles to begin strikes against Blackhelm, in the event they failed to comply. Interceptor CAPs were stepped up in intensity to guard against Confed bombers. Conventional ICCMs in Sula and Mya Duchies were being brought to full alert, while the nuclear variants were being brought to standby alert in the case Blackhelm decided to go for broke.

In the arena of space, even if Imperium had expressed its purpose before the Confed ASAT mission, it was unlikely that Imperial satellites could have been brought down with anything based on Terra. The Kinetic Strike Satellites were put in Highly Elliptical Orbits that only brought them through LEO over the Haven and CAD regions and were well south and way above what any ASAT missile could reach by the time they came into view of Confed territory; that would change when some kinetic sats were nudged to an HEO that centered on Terra Exitium over a five day period, but by then Blackhelm's defenses would be otherwise engaged. The spy satellites weren't impossible to get to, being continuously in Medium Earth Orbit, but getting even a small ASAT package that high meant an ICBM-sized booster, which was both expensive and could easily be misinterpreted. There were also a great deal of both types of satellites, quite probably more than the Confederacy had missiles. In short, the Imperium's satellites were safe for the time being.

Itzerican Sugan stared across the vast expansive bridge of his vessel, at the core of the room hovered a great globe, the planet hovered in breathtaking three dimensional perfection, monstrosities hovered in mid air as they hurled themselves at each other, the Itzerican held his chin as he smirked, swinging out his arm to a Taivizan at the communications alcove he grandly declared his order, echoing throughout the bridge regally, “send out the Tokon GX’s NOW!” the Taivizan and a pair of Vikulay’s thrummed with “Vetan Xo Vetan” as they relayed the order, in high orbit a number of Novan space stations would begin disgorging the space model Tokons which would come screeching in, flooding enemy communication frequencies with deranged cackling and predictions of death and doom, all in an insane wacky and bizarre tone, their Signature weapons were slung under each wing, Twin Gallax 27mm Gauss Guns, these were preferred over Rail guns to be more in keeping with the Tokon Design philosophy of mass produced easy to maintain weapons, outwards the swarm continued to flow, propelled with ease by their powerful magnetic engines, the Tokon GX’s had been designed after Zeonic Principal Aiguille Delaz had mounted a brave space based supply drop to the holdout forces at Valjsguard in the last year of that fateful war, where Zeon had deployed a small space armada against the somewhat lacking Novan Space Force, this had been remedied greatly with the Tokon GX.

Acting very much as a fighter as they swarmed in between allied vessels, taking shots that would have been meant for their larger comrades and sundering their mechanical innards to the cold embrace of space with a loud death squawk, the swarm roiled as it spread out, and began forming into smaller broods, already several began assailing enemy space assets, aiming their Gauss Guns at them and letting rip or plain old kamikaze, the amount of Tokons still yet pouring out boggled the mind, but to the Allies, who were by now in the know, it was not that much of a feat, Novacom Manufacturing turned out several billion Tokons a year, and the estimated price of a Tokon by some had been pegged at less than a Million Novons, possibly far less due to the prodigious mass manufacturing techniques of that enigmatic people, the swarm squawked as one as it let loose a hail of Tesla Cored Missiles of the Haywire Brand of weapons being developed by scientists, the Missiles were intelligent to an extreme, and were more akin to miniaturised kamikaze drones armed with explosives than missiles in a way, due to their Twin Tesla Cores they were able to avoid most enemy anti missile interception methods, simply swerving away, and when they would impact, the twin Tesla cores would overload catastrophically as the energy levels rose beyond containable levels by the slender missiles and they exploded.

Each Tokon was equipped with a fair number of these, and were astute in using them, soaring low over the hulls of enemy vessels and ploughing them in at point blank range, synchronising their targets as they filled hidden frequencies with the highest encoding, heavily Encrypted in Rotating keys, and then of course actually written in the unknown Novan Language and further then oscillating through polarities as they sang with one another co-ordinating their attacks through a cryptic and nonsensical manner, they united their attacks as one flying in low, pummelling section by section, the inevitable counter fire would probably take out a Tokon in three shots, but the Broods never faltered, in the dance of death, their eternal song called out across the cosmos, as they spread their insanity amongst the Cosmos, their black forms invisible against the starlit sky, the only thing giving them away was their red highlights as they swarmed in close, the swarm continued to grow, and continued to launch spreading out as they went about the business of war, preparing the way for the sword to fall, preparing the way for the end, as they went their way weaving an interstellar pattern their movements swift and lethal to an organic pilot, but of course who would be mad enough to Pilot a Tokon…

Itzerican, Kramian Deltzar reports Tokon Deployment at 39%, they expect to completion to be in 13 minutes and 22 seconds, already they’ve moved to engage, enemy Satellites are being targeted especially, Tertiary Damocles alignment arrays have reached their allocated orbits, and relays are online, Initial Alignment is complete, and Preliminary Charging is increasing in Intensity, Critical ratio is rising, Preparations are complete, all that remains sir is to allow for Primary and Secondary Arrays to be freed up for firing solutions, The Sword is nigh ready,

The Itzerican’s eyes glittered, his eyes traced across the globe drinking in the Status reports like a fine nectar, darting throughout the web woven around the globe, and the paths being traced across the surface, his armies were on the march, already the Sons of Jindrax had made their move, Kaivazans sailed the seas in packs supported by Swift Sundrillziets and crowned by a storm cloud of Tokons, these highly flexible dread-birds soared the skies leering at any who dared look upon them the mechanical buzzards would kill with laughter, yet they ruled the roost of the skies, they could swoop and swarm, perhaps even better than their cousins in space, The Hunter squads had been combing the seas on the Hunt for Zeonic Forces, cataloguing the murky depths for further information on clues from the Omnipresent Bondal, their movements held an eerie synchrony, they moved as if guided by an over mind such was their precision, their absolute unity, they moved as if one, they were Novan, they would do no less, theirs was a style of warfare rarely seen, few had felt the blade, but they had fallen all the same.

The Itzerican had been gathering his forces for sometime now, the Darkening Fortress of Zukneval Hantaq was nigh on overloaded with Military Activity, patrols were high, the Tokons swarmed at less than 60 second intervals, the military presence was oppressive, the lessons of the past were well learnt, paranoia and vigilance merged into a mysterious omniscience of what would happen, orbiting satellites had been mysteriously unable to obtain data of Novacom territory for decades, and this continued, however something strange would appear to happen to enemy surveillance, the operators and any who seemed to gaze at the images would seemingly forget basic things, like what they were looking at, indeed in some cases the poor individuals would even forget how to breathe, such was the effect of a strange influence, as a tall thin, almost cadaverous, in onyx black garb with his cropped black hair and his almost hidden face his eyes closed as he simply sat within a chamber, surrounded by his comrades, as they simply thought, sending out their psychic might in a subtle way, in a subtle subliminal untraceable in nature, designed to slowly empty the contents of a mind, literally deleting all that the viewer would know, it was a subtle method, done in such a way that if fed into a computer for analysis it would create a lethal super virus as it was analysed translating directly into programming language in a way unknowable to non Novans, a favoured Technique of the Notorious Enforcer Corp, of the Black Skull.

Itzerican, your deployment orders at Zukneval Hantaq are complete, your armies merely await the order, Bondal reports that our allies in Haven have not yet departed,”

Excellent Sokrilius, and what of Novacom Manufacturing, have they assembled their staging areas to supply us, and what of Yuri, where is his report, Never forget Sokrilius, that logistics and intelligence can be of more use than even the most powerful of formations,” Sugan replied admonishingly as he appraised the young man before him, his expression akin to a father considering whether to punish or reward a son, he clasped a heavy hand upon the young mans left shoulder and led him to the forward view point of the tiered bridge, showing him what lay beyond, the skies stretched high above, as the Itzerican pointed to the skies above, “My departed former colleagues were blind to the shifting realities, they thought that everyone stood still, it cost us dearly, and in the end it cost them the ultimate cost, I wish them no ill, they were my friends, almost family, I mourned their passing, for it was a tragedy, their deaths were meaningless, yet the blow came from above,” He waved a hand to the new constellations being birthed above by his own hand, the deaths orchestrated by his own time and effort, designs created by his own experiences, concepts created under rivers of blood and years of suffering and agony of loss, it weighed heavily upon his soul, to think that he was nigh on the grand architect of the many technologies of death possessed by Novacom.

“by Iccaproti, he accepted the true nature of war, it is change, it is movement, it is all encompassing, remember that last my young friend, remember it well, our most powerful and advanced of designs are nothing without ammunition and spare parts, a Vrazen without a Tesla Generator is an ornament, remember this, and remember it well, now, I want you that report from Yuri, go fetch it for me,” the conversation was evidently at an end, and Sokrilius knew it, saluting his mentor he snap heeled and stalked off the bridge, the Itzerican smiled, seeing a glimmer of himself in the teenager, and he was filled with hope, hope for the future, he padded away from the glorious view and he clenched his fist, “and now” he thought, “I must kill fathers sons daughters and mothers once more, they never learn, and we never cease to teach”

OOC: Blackhelm, got a map? a region map would be appreciated also. And the coalition is formed of Whyatica, Scandavian States, Novacom, USSNA, and Me.

[High Earth Orbit]

'Thor'-Class Weapons Command Satellites watched the ensuing battle, which involved thousands of brilliant pebbles colliding with ASATs and pods, from high above the earth, in relative safety. They were guarded by thousands more brilliant pebbles and dozens of MIRCAL equipped satellites, they were also accompanied by hundreds of god-rod satellites, no one would notice them because of their lack of markings until it was too late.

Soon thousands of god rods began to disembark from their launchers, their tungsten titanium mass in a 'crowbar' shape, well, a 3.556m long and .1778m diameter bar, weighing in at 1,492kg. Of course, these were the tactical, the strategic nearly twice as big, 6.096m in length and 305.8mm in diameter, and weighed in at 7,517kg.

Roughly 4,000 tactical god rods were being unleashed at the Blackhelm Forces, 3/4ths of those targeting the confederacy's military airfields, specifically control towers and runways, as well as hangars. With a 10m CEP and course correction these weapons would not miss, and Mach 32.9 (10,900m/sec) speeds would give the Confederate Air Defences very, very little time in intercepting them, this would hopefully ruin the enemy's ability to launch more ASATs, although it was doubtful they had more. Each rod would be able to leave a crater of over 15.145ft in diameter and 4.13ft deep in reinforced concrete.

The other 1/4 of the rods would be launched against a swatch of beach defences 200km long, they looked to wipe out any AA installations and bunker positions along the shore. They were joined by nearly 9,000 Unity Gun shells, making sure the beaches were clean of anything Confederate.

[Frye Sea, Haven]

The 3,273 combat vessels and 1,080 logistical vessels of the Skyian Expeditionary Armada began to pour out of the Frye Sea and steam towards Blackhelm. Thousands of aircraft patrolled the skies, flying past other nations and on to victory.

God rod attacks were of course predicted to take place, and the Confederacy had countermeasures prepared for when the strike would take place. As soon as the command was sent to the satelites to launch their god rods, ground control fired up a missile spam to target the TSS sattelites. This was a page taken out of the Leafanistani playbook, as it was seen to be used effectivly in Groznyj. As the God Rods sped toward the surface, the impact that they would make with the wall of missiles would be powerful enough to cause the rod to splinter, sending hundreds of pieces of tungsten to fall to the ground around the Confederacy. This would, of course, damage the jungles and cause some damage to the airbases, but the massive damage the air bases would have recieved if the god rods struck unopposed had been avoided.

Meanwhile, ASAT's continuosly streaked skywards, targeting the satelites that had fired the God Rods, and the solar sailors were engaging the enemy fleet valiantly. Already, about half of the space vessels of the Confederate Space Marines were destroyed. The others continued firing away with their rail guns and pods were constantly flying towards the enemy ships, their crews all anxiously awaiting the impact and the moment that they would be able to spill forth into the enemy vessel and show them what they were capable of.

The commander in Sacrament National Air Force Base looked out as the god rods splinters fell onto the base, taking out a hanger and crushing a control tower. "They want to use god rods do they?" he said aloud to himself. "Allectus, sink the Hood."

On that order, forty satelites that were still active began to focus their aim on the pair of Hood class super dreadnoughts that the Whyatican Navy had deployed. The plan was to fire thirty rods at one and ten at the other, splittinf their fire and hopefully assuring that one of them would be sent to the bottom while remaining confident that both of the monsters of the sea would never make it back to port. In minutes, the god rods were on their way, speeding towards the ships as they made their way across the vast ocean between Whyatica and the Confederacy.

OOC: Map, We need! :P Also, USSNA has been a no show, should he not get on IRC by tomorrow, izistan is in his place. (yes this many people hate you blackhelm XD)

[High Earth Orbit]

Mechanical Eyes watched coldly as the flames of Confederate Missiles appeared in the atmosphere. They were tracked the flares of the rockets as they ascended to the stars. Their cold calculating brains ordering their cousins on a massed attak on the incoming missiles. Hundreds of mechanical bodies soared through space smashing into the missiles is a glorious display of destruction, the pieces of the missiles becoming deadly projectiles and destroying their brothers and sisters. The destruction cascaded down to the last projectile.

Anything left was either intercepted my MIRACL or simply did not have the energy after the booster ran out to reach high earth orbit. The satellites were simply to high.

Orders were relayed from CINDER-C in The Silver Sky. The airfields were to be destroyed at all expense. Unity Guns began to traverse to their targets. Thousands of God Rod Satellites began to recieve targeting information from the 'Thor'-Class Command Satellites. Soon god rods began to disengage, another group, this time of both tactical and strategic length god rods (which had double the length and over 5x the mass of the tacticals, about 4x the damage). A total of 8,000 tactical and 2,000 strategic god rods were being unleashed against the airfields in their entirety, about 1/4th of the tactical and 1/6th of the strategic rods had now been expended. A large amount, but it was worth it. Unity Guns began to open up again, nearly 9000 unity shells would arrive in Blackhelm within the hour, this time targeting evey airfield in the country.

Besides, a god rod is cheaper to manufacture then a ASAT by over nearly two orders of magnitude, however, this gap would be closed to 1 order because of launch costs. But The Silver Sky had a much larger pocket book to devote to space assests then most nations devoted to their entire navies. Several dozen We Buy It Inc. owned space launch facilities far away from combat and even in foreign nations began launch procedures to launch the replacements for the brilliant pebbles (over 4000 had been expended so far, about 1/32nd the total) and god rods, they were slated to be operational in a week. MIRACL satellites, spy sats and Thors would take much longer to replace then a week, probably a month.

[Skyian-Whyatican Invasion Fleet]

The incoming god rods were detected as they began to streak through upper the atmosphere. The 'Shalrirorchia'-Class Trimaran Guided Missile Cruisers which formed the bulk of the fleet's air defence had been equipped with Long Range X-Band Search and Track Radar, and the 'Hyperion'-Class Assault Dreadnoughts. Within seconds RIM-501EA 'Lightning Bolt' Exo-Atmospheric Defence Missiles began to depart from their cold launch VLS tubes and streak towards the incoming projectiles at Mach 9. Within seconds they annhilated each other, raining fragments over the Whyatican fleet.

The Blackhelm Confederacy had been warned, perhaps just a bit stridently, as to what the Imperium's requirements were. Not only had the slavers ignored the Imperial requirements, but had had the terminal stupidity to attack vessels belonging to an Imperial ally just outside of Haven regional waters. In effect, the slavers' reply had been a declaration of war. The gauntlet had been thrown down and would be quite gladly picked up.

The Duchies of Sula and Mya each had 96 bomber squadrons, plus an additional 42 squadrons of intercontinental-ranged fighter-bombers capable of acting in the role. 13 other Duchies had bomber forces of the exact same size, but the only ones that mattered to the Confederacy, at least initially, were the ones in Sula and Mya. The Imperium's response to the Confed aggression would be exquisite in its simplicity, what the naval types called an Alpha Strike, a massed aerial strike against surface assets; naval bases and radar sites near the coastline. The first aircraft in the air were, naturally enough, the FB-101 bomber escorts, although they were shortly followed by B-106A medium and B-101D heavy bombers. When the time came the B-108C super-heavy and B-110A ultra-heavy bombers joined their brethren high in the midnight blue skies. As all intercontinental flight are, this one was long and tiring, with the occasional catnap and bite to eat for the crew when they could be relieved temporarily. In reverse of the launch order the B-108 and B-110 bombers, with their far longer-ranged missiles launched their deadly payloads first, the massive BGM-503B cruise missiles dropping from bomb bays for a hundred feet before the ripping sound of indicated that the missiles' PDE engines had lit off. The smaller B-101 and B-106 bombers did not launch at the same time, but were waiting for a countdown that was initiate by the first launch to reach zero. When it did the smaller bombers let go with their shorter-ranged BGM-502 cruise missiles. At no point did either bomber fleet come into the radar range of any Confed AWACS, as there was no need to do so to strike peripheral targets.

Both missile types had to stay fairly high to get the required ranges, but for large missiles their radar signals were fairly low and they were perfectly capable of fooling a SAM's radar or even evading it if required. The BGM-502s would be going after radar and SAM sites, plus any targets of opportunity. The BGM-503Bs, on the other hand, would be going after ships in port or in the immediate vicinity of any ports or harbors. Given that the latter missiles was designed to seriously hurt even superdreadnaughts, it was a given that any destroy or cruiser would simply be obliterated by a single hit. The 502s would come in first, about five minutes ahead of the 503Bs so that the larger missiles could have a relatively free reign attacking their targets.


[A total of 14,688 BGM-502 cruise missiles and 10,368 BGM-503B cruise missiles were launched in this attack. Stats on the missiles and bombers can be had here: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=278248]

OOC: Too tired for a lpost, but TSS, those God Rod pieces would still do damage to the ships, just not the same as if the wntire rod hit. And SS, we are anti-slavery what are you talking about?

OOC: Too tired for a lpost, but TSS, those God Rod pieces would still do damage to the ships, just not the same as if the wntire rod hit. And SS, we are anti-slavery what are you talking about?

OCC: Blackhlem, check TG's

OOC: I'll edit that in and let why respond, as it was his fleet that was targeted, mine is just nearly enough to hit the god rods.

Whyatican Battlegroup
"Admiral, incoming godrod!" the radar officer said, as the automatic systems of an entire 3,000 ship strong fleet was focused on deflecting the godrod fragments away from the Hoods and preferably into the ocean. Prototype chemical laser batteries mounted on destroyers opened up, heating up the godrod fragments enough that their already damaged structures warped, with anti-missile missiles impacting and turning the fragments into even smaller fragments, their descent slowed to the point where it rained small metal fragments on the decks of IWNS Hood and IWNS Duke of Caladan, killing a few unlucky crewmen that could not find cover in time as the small fragments rained at decent velocities. Fragments stuck themselves in the deck armour, most being completely deflected by the thick armour box of the Hood class battleship.

Grand Admiral Richard Nixon's little go-kart rolled around a bit, he looked at a camera showing the front of the ship, which at the moment looked a bit like a porcupine with hundreds of godrod fragments sticking out of the armoured hull.

His jowls vibrated a bit, and he said, "Get those damn shards out of the ship, and have the fleet fire an ASAT salvo against any Blackhelm satellites."

"Aye, sir. Transmitting orders." the weapons officer said, as the VLS missile batteries of the two Hoods activated, loading with anti-satellite missiles of Unionist manufacture. The rest of the fleet responded to the order, targetting information provided by satellites and the space fleet, and the first salvo of hundreds of anti-satellite missiles erupted from VLS missile cells, each targetting any known Blackhelm space asset. Four salvos of approximately 1,380 missiles each were fired, and the fleet continued to move onto the Blackhelm Confederacy, now with much higher anti-air defence measures to prevent near-disasters like that one again.

Space
A railgun blast impacted the side of one of the Gorgon class frigates, not managing to penetrate the entire vessel due to the whipple armour, however, life support in that section of the vessel was down and power for a whole third had been cut. The railgun ceased firing at an especially rapid rate, and the rate of fire for the lasers had been dramatically dropped. The vessel began accelerating to the back of the fleet for better cover, other railgun shells nearly missing it and being taken out by anti-kinetic defense batteries. The three Huntingdon cruisers continued to dole out punishment to the Blackhelm fleet - their mighty anti-battery defenses doing an admirable job of preventing impact.

A 6" railgun shell, lucky enough to only be deformed by the counterbattery fire, impacted the front armour of SRSS Aurora, the shell bursting through the front armour and just barely being stopped as it penetrated the last layer - three unlucky crewmen standing near an electrical panel were killed as the panel exploded due to the gun hit. The ship continued to fire, coilgun shells being fired across at the breaching pods which continued to move ever closer, and the increasingly diminishing number of Blackhelm warships.

Bridge, IWSS Huntingdon
"Target those breaching pods before they get closer to the frigates!" Admiral Nimoy yelled, as another salvo of coilgun shells fired.

"Aye, Admiral!" the weapons officer yelled, firing a spread of 800mm anti-ship GRASER torpedoes at the breaching pods. The GRASERs had a power output of ten megatons - although it was likely that this was very much overkill, it would be a severe deterrent to the Blackhelm opponents not to use breaching pods any longer.

"Admiral - We have identified the ship that is likely their flagship." the sensor officer said, who had been analyzing enemy communications for the entire battle to try to find their command ship.

"Got it." the Admiral said, activating the fleetwide communications system, and saying, "All ships, target the Blackhelm flagship, targetting information is being transmitted."

The other ships in the fleet answered affirmative, with the sensor officer sending the tracking information. Every ship in the allied Whyatican/Skyian fleet suddenly fired a massive salvo at the targetted flagship, ignoring the breaching pods for a brief second and pouring all firepower available into the Blackhelm flagship, which would most certainly fold under the heavy firepower.

OOC: Map (http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=blackhelmconfederacyag2.png)

The Confederate Space Fleet now realized that they had lost. The few surviving ships began to suicidally charge at the Coalition fleet, guns blazing, hoping to possibly to some damage to the enemy. The torpedoes had done damage, but there were several hundred pods still in the sky. The Space Marines had over a thousand pods in the beginning, and the ones that survived should be making impact with enemy ships right now. Missile satelites began to loose their full compliment on the Whyatican and Skyian fleet, as well as on enemy satelites that were near them.

Back in Sacrament, the commander of the Space Fleet realized that all was lost in orbit. Rather than let them be destroyed by the enemy, he ordered all God Rod satelites to open up on the allied fleet. One thousand four hundred and sixty tungsten rods would soon be dropped to earth once again. Four hundred of the rods would be going for the Hood's, two hundred rods a ship. The Hoods were causing quite a bit of worry to the Confederate High Command, and their removal would be like a large burden had been lifted from their shoulders.

Missiles continued to slam into the Unity shells and God Rods, but still, many got through, destroying many air bases throughout the Confederacy. This, however, was not a great loss. As I mentioned earlier, the Confederate war doctrine was built around long range bombardment as those they were facig now, because war with Dephire and his Dominator cannons was always a threat. As a result, the majority of the Confederate Air Force was not kept on bases, but rather was hidden in warehouses around the nation. As soon as the bombardment and destruction of the airbases ended, new ones were already being started, trucks and construction crews hurrying to get more planes out and onto transports and begin to lay out new runways and set up temporary control towers.

[OOC thread here: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=522954 and don't forget my missile attack BC.]

Ever since the Whyatican declaration of war upon the Corporate Alliance, No Taxes' Military Forces had been mobilizing and they were finally ready for the first time in the nation's history to fight in a full scale war. Even though they had never fought a major war before, their right to exist as a sovereign nation had been threatened and they were prepared to defend themselves and the Blackhelm Confederacy to the very end. Already the company We Buy It Inc. had been expelled from the country and any foreign nationals from the countries that had declared war on the Corporate Alliance had been given 24 hours to leave the country. A call for 500,000 volunteers had been issued although less has signed up than had been hoped for, because the average citizen of No Taxes barely knew that the Corporate Alliance existed let alone that No Taxes was a member. It would take an attack closer to home to fully galvanize the people.

Meanwhile, air flights were going round the clock transporting supplies and men to Blackhelm. Wary of the large enemy fleets closing in on the shores of Blackhelm it had been decided that almost all men and supplies would be brought in by air, despite the fact that it would slow down the process some. So far only the 1st Army had made it to the Blackhelm Confederacy, with more troops on the way. Fighter escorts, now numbering in the thousands and based from No Taxes and Blackhelm bases, ensured air superiority to protect the cargo planes.

On the home front, nearly 1 million men would stay on defense for the time being, in the off chance that the mainland was attacked. Mines were being put up around the harbors and possible landing areas, with fortifications being added to the existing ones along the coast. Even though, the Armed Forces were largely untested, they would be ready.

Mobley sat at his desk. He would have to deploy the blackshirts, he had little choice. The Majority of his Campaign doners had... interest... that Blackhlem remained alive, even though his country's official policy on Blackhelm was to see them fall. So with a heavy heart, he ordered one million blackshirts to the conflict. He had hired numerous company's to fly them there, ranging from military escort companies to commercial airlines. They came with all the chemical gas Mobley could get his hands on, along with backpack nukes. His men would fight to the death with the fanatical determination not seen since Berlin in 1945. He just hoped that they would get there, fully safe.

OCC: Meh. Okay.

Victory in space had nearly been established - the Blackhelm space fleet, outmatched in technology and tactics, now began a suicidal charge at the Coalition fleet. However, given the massive distances of space, both them and the breaching pods were quite far away from the allied fleet and continued to have firepower poured into them, with more attention being put into the breaching pods as they closed.

"Fleet, execute maneuver Charlie Three Delta." Nimoy said into the fleet communications system, and the entire fleet turned 90 degrees on it's x axis and began to accelerate, perpendicular to the motion of the breaching pods and the suicidal Blackhelm warships. This permitted the use of all the centreline guns on the Huntingdons, but prevented the Gorgons that had spinal batteries from using them. The advantage of this, though, was the fact that the Allied fleet could accelerate far faster than the Blackhelm fleet could, enabling them to essentially dodge the Blackhelm breaching pods indefinetly. However, the range of the ships was not indefinite, but it was longer than that of the breaching pods.

Blackhelm missiles were targetted by the dozens of point-defense batteries, short laser bursts knocking out many missiles at a rapid speed. Three Whyatican spy satellites were damaged by the Blackhelm missile spread, their flaming wreckage careening back towards the Earth. Counter-fire against the missile batteries was initially provided by Whyatican and Skyian missile satellites, and some missiles were soft-launched at the Blackhelm satellites from the Allied fleet, but the vast majority of the attention was focused on the breaching pods and the last few ships. A Gorgon class frigate had a missile impact it's front armour, much of the energy being absorbed by the spaced whipple shielding. The frigate itself didn't have much damage beyond the armour penetration - the weapons continued to fire and the sensors were only disrupted briefly. Brilliant Pebble kinetic interceptor spam filled the space in between the missiles and the Coalition fleet, preventing the majority of the missile fire from impacting the fleet. Still, missiles leaked through and made it past the other directed-energy point defences, and IWSS Cab Calloway lost all power and was forced to be abandoned after the battle, to be dragged back to the spacedock for repairs.

Whyatican Fleet, open ocean
"More incoming godrods!" the sensor officer yelled as a near-missed godrod impacted the ocean near IWNS Duke of Caladan. Immediately, 30mm CIWS, anti-air missiles, chemical lasers, and essentially anything available that could deflect godrods away from the capital ships was fired into the sky. A godrod impacted an E90 class frigate on the outer picket, the massive energy cracked open the ship, the majority of the hands going down with the ship, unable to escape. Fragments of shattered godrods rained down on the fleet, the thinner-armoured ships being penetrated and an occasional man dying, the thicker ones looking like they have lawns made of tungsten fragment. Godrod fragments slammed into the hulls of several destroyers, and on one, the IWNS Stephen Cropper, the godrod impact breached into a magazine, detonating it. The crew abandoned ship as quickly as possible, getting onto lifeboats and heading to the nearest ship they could.

The damage had been slight, however - no capital ships had been destroyed, and both Hood class battleships had survived. Anti-satellite missiles continued to rain up from the Whyatican fleet, targetting whatever remaining Blackhelm missile satellites in orbit.

With the space fleet mostly destroyed, and the battle in orbit seemingly lost, the Sacrament Space Command had decided to enact their final attack at the Coalition Space Navies. Garbage dumps around the nation were being emptied, their contends being loaded up onto hundreds of space shuttles. Fuel tanks and other explosive pieces were also being loaded up, and over a thousand ballistic missiles were prepared. The commander looked up at the sky, towards the enemy targets so far above him. "Fire the weapons" he said.

Hundreds upon hundreds of missiles and space shuttles were simultaneously launched into orbit, blasting off towards the darkness above. Once they had made it out of the atmosphere, however, they just stopped. The missiles would now just begin to float there, and the hundreds of space shuttles began to offload millions of large pieces of debris. Fuel tanks, chemical storage containers, rockets, even bath tubs were now floating around, making something of an artificial asteroid field. The space shuttles would then dive back down to earth again, and pick up even more garbage, and would od this again and again until the space around the earth was covered in trash.

Any enemy satelites or ships that were caught in this artificial asteroid field would likely be smashed by the debris, and the majority of this debris was explosive, making it pose even more hazardous for the ships and satelites. The amount of stuff that had been sent to space would also pose a problem to the enemies, clouding their sensors and causing all sorts of problems for the crews.

Hundreds of shuttles were going ot be constantly running back and forth, ferrying more explosive garbage from earth to space, and at the same time even more missiles were being launched into space and than just being stopped, left to float about.

With the space fleet mostly destroyed, and the battle in orbit seemingly lost, the Sacrament Space Command had decided to enact their final attack at the Coalition Space Navies. Garbage dumps around the nation were being emptied, their contends being loaded up onto hundreds of space shuttles. Fuel tanks and other explosive pieces were also being loaded up, and over a thousand ballistic missiles were prepared. The commander looked up at the sky, towards the enemy targets so far above him. "Fire the weapons" he said.

Hundreds upon hundreds of missiles and space shuttles were simultaneously launched into orbit, blasting off towards the darkness above. Once they had made it out of the atmosphere, however, they just stopped. The missiles would now just begin to float there, and the hundreds of space shuttles began to offload millions of large pieces of debris. Fuel tanks, chemical storage containers, rockets, even bath tubs were now floating around, making something of an artificial asteroid field. The space shuttles would then dive back down to earth again, and pick up even more garbage, and would od this again and again until the space around the earth was covered in trash.

Any enemy satelites or ships that were caught in this artificial asteroid field would likely be smashed by the debris, and the majority of this debris was explosive, making it pose even more hazardous for the ships and satelites. The amount of stuff that had been sent to space would also pose a problem to the enemies, clouding their sensors and causing all sorts of problems for the crews.

Hundreds of shuttles were going ot be constantly running back and forth, ferrying more explosive garbage from earth to space, and at the same time even more missiles were being launched into space and than just being stopped, left to float about.

The Republic of the Red Islands was in no way interested in destroying its own satellites, nor everyone else's, but this course of action seemed appropriate. It would even the playing field once and for all.

Hundreds upon thousands of Scuds programmed not to reenter the atmosphere were being launched with high explosive warheads. A few of them were being hurridely loaded with whatever debris they had. A local shipyard came through with millions of outdated rivets and sand to fill the Scuds.

They would create a navigational hazard for centuries to come. The sand and other small debris would cloud sensors and sandblast enemy ships. The larger debris would have to be navigated around, wasting all their fuel and forcing them out of the sky.

A few of the higher ups questioned the decision, effectively destroying space travel. It may force higher powers to interfere. They were dismissed.

"Admiral! The last Blackhelm ship has been destroyed, but we're receiving satellite information, incoming missiles and space shuttles." the sensor officer onboard the slightly damaged IWSS Huntingdon said.

"Order the fleet to shoot down everything coming up from Blackhelm." Nimoy 'said', his voice box sputtering a bit.

"Aye." the weapons officer said, and the combined fleet turned back towards the Earth, the main guns powering up again for a salvo against the upcoming Griffincrest shuttles and missiles. Given their rather..vertical trajectory, the Griffincrest satellites would be sitting ducks for oncoming Brilliant Pebbles and coilgun fire. Oncoming Griffincrest orbiters would rapidly find themselves in trouble as they flew directly in the paths of oncoming 6" coilgun shells, and the missiles were targetted by large clusters of Brilliant Pebbles fire. As for the debris field that had already been established, as much kinetic weaponry was fired at as possible, pulverizing much of it and sending others into a decaying orbit, which would eventually take it back into the Earth's atmosphere where it would be destroyed. Blackhelm 'mine-missile' dealies were simply shot at the Coalition fleet's leisure - there were no coalition satellites or ships near them, so they were destroyed whenever it was needed, the debris field itself taking a large priority. This strategy seemed rather idiotic to those in command - throwing bathtubs in orbit just meant that the fleet pulverized the bath tubs and continued bombarding Blackhelm, not much else.

An unlucky Skyian missile satellite that was in the way of an orbiting bathtub was smashed, it's parts floating around, and the offending bathtub was targetted and pulverized by a Brilliant Pebble round. However, the losses were expected to be minimal due to the fact that the newest-generation Whyatican satellites had great capacity for moving, and were unlikely to be that harmed by the debris field, given the debris that was already in orbit.

The Scandavian missiles were tracked as they screeched towards the Confederacy from thousands of miles away. This massive gap only provided more time for anti-missile systems to open up, and that they did. AAD-1 balloons locked onto the missiles severak hundred miles out and unloaded on them, sending thousands of missiles to meet the mass that was violating their sovreignty. Any of the missiles that were lucky enough to zip past the thousands of balloons would then face off with the air fleet, who also were packing a massive amount of anti-missile systems. Still, a few missiles squeaked by. Finally, the Confederate ground based systems would come on line. Thousands more missiles screamed up into the sky.

A handful of missiles still made their way to the ground, destroying a few radar stations and damaging a Navy base near Redemption. The damage, however, was all repairable and mobile radar stations were being brought up to replace those lost in the attack. As said several times, Confederate doctrine incorporated long range bombardment, and was ready to replace almost anything that could be destroyed from a distance.

In Space, the last hope was now about to take effect for the Confederacy. The Griffincrest Corporation's space station, the "Medusa", was now about to show itself. The Medusa was a powerful weapon, containing forty eight torpedo bays, five six inch rail guns, two three inchers, seven five inchers, and six twelve inchers. Also aboard the ship was a compliment of Griffincrest space shuttles, each with a small three inch railgun aboard it. There were about forty of these shuttles withing the Medusa, and all of these were now being sent forth, along with a fire of all forty eight torpedoes and a full salvo from the railguns.

By and large Joint Strategic Command, which is to say that four general officers that commanded the entire Imperial Armed Forces in the name of Her Imperial Majesty Lien I Larsen, hadn't expected the attack to be wildly successful. Even though it appeared the Blackies (a pejorative that had quickly made its way through the ranks) followed a material-based strategy, they could've been been more deceptive about it. As it was, their spirited defense had revealed a good deal about their defenses, including that, oddly enough, their ground-based radars had more powerful radars and a longer reach than the balloon-based systems. It was also evident that they didn't like stretching the balloons past their defenses, despite the numbers available. A very formidable picket with a long reach could've been had if they were willing to accept the fact that they were going to lose the balloons in a war anyway. In the end, the JSC found out all that it needed to know about the Blackies' air defenses and how to kill them.

As soon as the FB-101s hit the ground they were given priority taxi and their air crews told to grab eight hours of rest, because they would be flying the next sortie solo. That meant, more likely than not, that whatever was in the air that had killed all those missiles was going to do. Which sat perfectly well with the bomber escort crews, since they didn't like going on long missions for little gain. Ten hours later the FB-101 crews had slept, showered, been briefed, and were in their respective aircraft. Another long, grueling, and somewhat more dangerous mission was in store. This time, though, there would be merit to what they did.

The FB-101s, 1,152 in all, took off from their bases in Sula and Mya and climbed at a sedate pace to 80,000 feet. There they would stay for much of the journey, the reduced air density and cruise speed allowing them to use as little fuel as was possible for PDEs to use. Once the Super Halberds hit eight hundred kilometers out, though, they bad a shallow dive that would bring them to 65,000 feet at 600 km out. Given that this was the maximum range of their AIM-511B missiles, they could have fired right away, but instead their mission plan called for them to close the gap to 580km, just a hair inside the radar horizon of the ground-based radars guarding the Blackie coast. The extra twenty kilometers of fuel and a 5,000 foot altitude advantage over the air defense balloons would give the missiles enough fuel to jink. Once the two groups, on separate but converging vectors, reached 580 kilometers each bomber let loose with nine missiles, pulled a hundred and eighty degree turn, and hit their burners. It would only take the missiles, with a max speed of Mach 6.2, about four and a half minute to reach the balloons and they would be coming in a combination of inertial guidance (having had their flight vectors and attack areas pre-programmed), home-on-radar, and home-on-jam modes. During the last 30 seconds of flight, about when the balloons would be able to pick the missiles up on radar, the missiles would also turn on their LPI radar for precision's sake. However, considering just how many missiles were screaming in on the 3,000 balloons, a miss here and there wasn't likely to matter.


[There are 10,368 missiles, Black, in case you don't feel like doing the math.]

I walk the Earth just as they planned
Baptized in fire for my ancient land
The coming curse, your anti-Christ, I am the Watcher's eye
I vindicate and cleanse the Earth of all mankind

For many years, I've walked among you
Through the folds of time and space
Kingdoms fall, leaders die, as I see fit
I devour souls of those that pose a threat

??? - Izistan City.
The cold and shiny marble floor echoed with the footsteps of Marshal Ivan Simonov as he approached the Obsidian Throne, all the while under the hard eyes of Doomingslandi bodyguards. Fished from the slopes of a undersea volcano in the Inland Sea, the chunk of obsidian had been ground and polished into the throne that the Imperator sat in, surrounded by artistic carvings and sharp geometric projections. On this occasion the Imperator was surrounded by various computer displays.

Imperator Isbrand Zedlacher wasn’t the sort of man that could blend into a crowd easily. Six and a half feet tall with a shaven scalp, pale (almost albino) skin, and no facial hair to speak of; his right hand had been replaced with a metal gauntlet, and what looked like a camera lens poked out of the metal patch that covered his left eye socket. Wounds from the revolution some said, during an assault on one of the Directorate command vaults. He looked up at Simonov as he approached, lens focusing on him; “Mr. Simonov, I take it you are wondering why I have called you here today?” Simonov shrugged; he was one of the few men who was allowed to act so informally with Zedlacher in private, “I’m guessing the Whyatican’s have finally given us the green light?” Zedlacher smiled, “Correct my good man, the Aerospace Force has been in action for the last several hours. Observe!”

Charts, numbers, and images (both live camera feeds and 3D mock ups) flashed into existence on what seemed to be a mere sheet of “glass” on one wall. Zedlacher gestured as he explained; “General Wolfe from Space Command thought this one up, we’ve a wolf pack of five Gorgon II’s accelerating into a hyperbolic Earth encounter trajectory from L1.” The dots representing the Gorgons swooped down around the sphere representing Earth and back out past the moon. The simulation paused, then rewound. “But observe!” The Griffencrest station popped into existence along with the Whyatican commanded forces, as the Whyatican forced closed with the station the Izistani force appeared…from the opposite direction. “Retrograde trajectory you see? We’ll catch the bastards between us in a tradition pincer maneuver in about four hours, and our ships will be moving fast enough that if any of the corporate bastards tries to throw something at them, we’ll have the advantage speed wise.”

Zedlacher threw back his head and laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh at all; it was the sort of laugh you’d expect from someone feeding bunnies into a wood chipper. It sent shivers down Simonov’s spine every time he heard it. “And what then Imperator?” he ventured. “Why Simonov, I want you to lead the Second Army against the Blackies; you’ll have attached Janissary units of course.” He grinned, but there was no warmth in that rictus. “Do not fail me Simonov, if you make a fool of this nation, well, you know the price…as will your family.” Simonov gasped with a look of total horror over taking his features. Mind shattering torture and an ignoble death in some dark basement cell was one thing, dying knowing his family would be condemned to a shameful exile to Doomingsland or some other decidedly unappealing nation was quite another. Zedlacher didn’t seem to notice the man’s sudden discomfort. “I want the story of what we’ll do to them repeated around campfires hundreds of years from now, I want the Doomani in fucking awe of your handiwork. Now get at your work.” With that, he turned from his sub-ordinate and back to his displays.

Simonov could only stumble out of the room on quavering legs, endlessly repeating the mantra of “Get it together man, you have a job to do!” in his mind. He had to succeed, for his nations honor, his honor, and his family’s.

I walk the Earth another day
The wicked one that comes this way
Savior to my own, devil to some
Mankind falls, something wicked comes
The Coming Curse - Iced Earth

[Trying something new with this, hope it good enough. Stayed up all night to get back to my sleep cycle and I seem to have the most creative moments at 1-6ish in the morning...]

Whyaticans in spaaaaaaaaaaaaace
"Admiral Nimoy. Blackhelm space station up ahead." the sensor officer said, putting one of the camera feeds on screen. The station itself looked much like the ancient MIR design, only with gunz attached to it and some more formidable boosters. The station opened fire with a bizarre mix of calibre railguns - the largest being 12", making those particular shells massive targets for the Coalition fleet point defense. With the Izistani fleet coming in on a pincer movement, they would likely have free reign over that side of the Blackhelm space station, with most of it's guns and torpedoes focusing on the other half of the Coalition fleet.

A flood of Brilliant Pebbles fire filled the space in front of the fleet, making a literal mine field for the oncoming torpedoes and railgun shells - the torpedoes had to waste fuel and either attempt coming in from a different aspect, or run into the pebbles and be destroyed, and the railgun slugs would merely run into the pebbles and be destroyed. However, this method wasn't foolproof - a lot of the time the pebble would just knock the railgun slug a tad bit out of the way, making it on a dangerous path to an allied satellite, forcing a Coalition ship to waste more resources on immediately destroying or deorbiting the slug. A 6" slug crashed into the front armour of a Gorgon II, penetrating several layers and lodging itself just before the final layer.

A hypervelocity torpedo aimed at IWSS Huntingdon found itself detonated early by a point-defense laser battery - however, the torpedo was already shockingly close and the explosion tore a hole in the side armour of the ship, and Admiral Nimoy decided enough was enough regarding the Blackhelm station.

Four ten megaton bomb-pumped GRASER pods dropped off IWSS Huntingdon, and their boosters pushed them at the correct angle to hit only the Blackhelm station, and detonated. Four massive pulses of gamma rays, rated at ten megatons of power each, streaked across the space of orbit (well, they would if they were visible). The likelyhood was that this strike would kill everyone in the station quite instantly and destroy it - they had nothing that could stop the gamma rays, given that all EM radiation propagates at the speed of light.

Bridge, IWSS Huntingdon
"Admiral Nimoy, the Izistani Fleet is signalling that they wish to connect to our CNC network." the communication officer said, him being rattled off his chair briefly as a near-missed torpedo shook the ship. He grabbed a rail and pulled himself back in his chair, typing as he went.

"Allow it, have them start hitting the space station's weapons pods." Nimoy said over the racket of the battle, his voice box being strained.

"Aye."

The Izistani fleet, now briefly under Whyatican command for the mission, opened fire against the Blackhelm station's weapon pods using their directed energy weapons. At this point, the Izistani fleet, although extremely welcome, was extremely overkill. The station was already being overwhelmed with weaponry, and this just served to put the icing on the proverbial death cake.

Some of the Whyatican ships had taken pictures of the wreckage of the Blackhelm fleet and sent it back to their country, mainly for propaganda purposes. Immediately after receiving the photos, the government sent them to all major media conglomerates to print favourable stories about the Blackhelm war effort.

_________________________________________________________
BLACKHELM SPACE FLEET DESTROYED, TOTAL ALLIED VICTORY IN ORBIT
http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/4/43/Borg_probe_destroyed.jpg
A Blackhelm Confederacy ship in the midst of it's destruction
Today, the Miana Times received some of the best news of the Corporate War yet - the Whyatican-led Coalition space fleet had totally destroyed that of the Blackhelm Confederacy and her allies. The above picture was taken by a Lt. Miles Davis on the IWSS Gorgon, the original ship of the Whyatican Space Arm. The Space Fleet reported that every single Blackhelm space ship and satellite had been destroyed by the Coalition fleet. Casualties among the Coalition had not been sent to this newspaper, but if the Space Fleet's report is to be believed, the casualties were comparitively few. This victory may seal the deal for the Coalition, and the beginning of the end of the tyrannical Blackhelm Confederacy.

The Space Station, seeing that it was massively outnumbered and had very little hope, loosed as many torpedoes as possible in a span of only a few minutes, as well as an equal, if not greater number of shells. Hundreds of pieces of ordnance soon sped across space towards the enemy vessels. The enemy fleet had also decided to ignore the shuttles, who used their three inch rail guns to fire upon vital areas on the ships such as the bridge, life support, guns, and engines. Over three dozen of the little shuttles buzzed around, firing at the larger Coalition vessels.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the High Command had realized that the war in space was lost, and the Griffincrest vessels were only attempting to lash out and inflict whatever casualties were possible to do harm to the Coalition war machine. Finally, after over an hour of deliberation, the High Command had decided on their next move. On small, newly built poorly constructed runways across the Confederacy, over fifteen thousand aircraft had been gathered. Each one of these aircraft had been fitted with a pair of torpedoes, and were sent rocketing off towards the Whyatican fleet. The target now was the supply ships. The task was an incredibly risky one, and as a result, all of the armaments of the planes other than the torpedoes and a single R-77 missile were removed, replaced with several different countermeasures. Once in the air, the massive air fleet would break off into three groups, each of five thousand aircraft. One group would continue straight towards the center, while the other two groups would make their way to assault the flanks. With any luck, the sheer volume of aircraft and the counter measures that they would soon fill the sky with would be able to confuse the enemy defenses and allow the Confederate planes to complete their mission, albeit with heavy casualties.

Meanwhile, it Godspoint, a small town along the Confederate coast, the CFA or Confederate Farmers Alliance had gathered their small fleet of a little more than two dozen ships. The leader of the CFA stood aboard the flagship of the fleet, which was nothing more than a freighter decked out with a menagerie of AAA, anti-tank missiles, a few SAM's, and a pair of C-802 batteries. and looked angrily towards the Griffincrest/Confederate fleet. This dirty, powerful man was named Brutus Grandsledge. He quickly penned out a letter and sent it to be telegrammed to the Whyatican fleet. The letter read as follows.

"Greetings Coalition forces! I am writing to you on behalf of the CFA. We wish to side with you and topple the Griffincrest Corporation and the dogs of the Confederacy. We have a military force already in the country of well over a hundred and twenty thousand men. Please, allow us to meet with your fleet to discuss this matter further.

From,
Brutus Grandsledge"

Space Battle
A hit from a 3" railgun shell rattled the ship immensely -- it's armour barely holding up against the salvos. With the space station on it's death throes, firepower was being concentrated on the smaller shuttles now, which were maneuvering desperately to destroy anything that the Coalition used. Laser batteries began to overheat in the attempt to shoot down oncoming ordinance, and the Gorgon class frigate IWSS New Caladan suffered fatal failures of it's laser batteries as they overheated.

The Captain of the doomed ship, noting the dozens of incoming railgun shells and torpedoes, issued the command to abandon ship - but it was too late for him, as a 6" shell ripped through the armour and killed all electrical power, shortly followed by the rest of the weaponry. Five men succeeded in getting out of the ship in an escape pod, which was picked up as quickly as possible by another Gorgon II. Giving the fleet little time to rest and cool down the laser batteries was a severe tactical error on the part of Admiral Nimoy - faced with this massive barrage, the point-defense would likely begin to fail. Four 3" shells lodged themselves in the front armour of IWSS Huntingdon, heavily damaging it and weakening it enough that much further damage could cripple the ship.

The ship rotated on it's x axis, presenting the largely undamaged starboard armour to the oncoming barrages, absorbing some near-miss torpedo explosions and continuing to pour fire into the station and the massive hail of torpedo and railgun fire.

The entire fleet began moving away from the station, avoiding much of the dumb railgun fire, and continuing to focus fire on the shuttles and their railguns and torpedoes. Losses would hopefully be limited by moving away - the station was essentially doomed, and wasn't the primary threat any longer. The Izistani fleet provided needed fire support in the rear arc of the space station and the Blackhelm shuttles, being largely ignored by the shuttles and station fire.

Whyatican Fleet, International Waters
The Blackhelm plan of attacking Whyatican supply vessels was, in theory, a decent idea. However, there was a fatal flaw - they would have to fly past the main body of Whyatican vessels to even approach the supply ships, and even then, that would put them in range of Skyian and Scandinavian missiles, making their plan at best flawed and at worst completely suicidal. Approximately a fifth of the Whyatican fleet's arsenal of Firelance heavy anti-air missiles had been used in the defense against the godrod attack - and now they would be used again to destroy as many of the incoming torpedo bombers as humanly possible before the medium and short-ranged missiles had to be used. As the Whyatican fleet was still many miles and some days from the Confederacy, it would take the bombers some time to get in range of the Whyatican missiles.

Given the unsuccessful Scandinavian missile attack, the first wave of surface-to-air missiles would not come until the Blackhelm air fleet was outside of the protective balloon area. That would reduce the time that the fleet would have to respond, but it would prevent many missiles from being destroyed and allow the massacre of Blackhelm air power to proceed uninhibited.

OOC: Can we pause for Kraven to respond to all this?

OOC: Can we pause for Kraven to respond to all this?

[When's kraven going to be able to do that? I thought his job had him strapped for time. :/]

The enemy fleet had bought the trap, and now was the chance for the Confederate High Command to get a little revenge for the disaster in space. The so-called "planes" that the Whyatican fleet was picking up was not actually planes at all, but plywood models equipped with a jet engine, remote control, and some metal tubes. Each of the plywood aircraft did hold a quite powerful payload, however, as well as many very real anti-missile counter measures. As the massive air block began to make the assaults from the flanks and the front, the enemy Firelance missiles began to come in. This was very much anticipated, and each of the remote controlled models began to deploy their counter measures, sending flares, chaff, and tiny mirrors to distract the LIDAR systems all throughout the air, all the while sending out hundreds out RADAR jamming signals. With nine thousand missiles being fired at the fifteen thousand planes, the sheer amount of counter measures allowed for only a small number of the missiles to get through, downing a few hundred of the planes.

This loss, however, would not deter the force. After all, why would it? No men were to lose their lives other than the Whyaticans. As each of the plywood contraptions began to reach the preset destination of four hundred and fifty kilometers away from the Whyatican out picket, the immediatly dropped to only a few feet above the water, and loosed their missiles. Thousands of Shockhound Avenger missiles were soon screeching through the air for the frigates and destroyers that would be providing the protection for the rest of the fleet, just skimming along the water so as to minimize the effects of the rest of the fleets anti-missile systems. As soon as the missiles were all launched, the "planes" zipped back up into the air, and began to accelerate towards the enemy at full speed. The plan was to split the enemy fire and have most of the fleet concentrate on the mock-up aircraft as they prepared their kamikaze attack to allow the majority of the Maccabean made anti-shipping missiles to strike their targets. Each of the decoy planes were capable of inflicting damage of their own upon the enemy ships, loaded with fifty pounds of high explosives and a whole lot of jet fuel, a shot to the bridge of a straight up kamikaze dive could easily render the small ships out of commision.

Meanwhile, in space, the Griffincrest shuttles watched as the space station was destroyed. In its last attempts to inflict damage, ten torpedoes and a small volley of the twelve inch guns were launched, all aimed at the Huntington, before the station exploded, sending rubble and debris throughout the dark expanse of space. The shuttles all took note of the Huntingtons situation as well, and although their numbers were diminshing fast, the ships, alittel more than two dozen of them, all began to zip around the enemy command ship, pounding away with their three inch guns and hoping to be able to at least say that the fight in space was not a complete massacre.

Down in Godspoint, the CFA patiently waited for the Coalition response. Each of the men were hoping to finally show the Confederacy and Griffincrest that they would not just be forgotten about and brushed aside any longer.

[Blackhelm Invasion Fleet, Skyian Element]

As the pylwood planes came into range of the Skyian AWACs AESA LPI radars the order to 'all-stop' went throughout both the Skyian and Whyatican Fleets. Within seconds Skyian ELINT on board frigates and destroyers began to pick out the sources of the jamming and targeted them with their radars, the concentrated radar beams quickly began to 'burn' through the jamming, as anything on board a plywood plane would be useless anyway.

Then fleet waited for the blackhelm planes to close to 640km of the fleet, then they let all hell lose on the planes. over 30,000 RIM-501ULR Firebolt Ultra-Long Range SAMs were fired from the 'Comberth' and 'Union'-Class Destroyers, however, they still had many more, as that was only >1/6th of their total loadout of Firebolts.

Each of the Firebolts closed on the plywood laughingstock of airplanes at Mach 6, allowing them an intercept time of just a few seconds over 5 minutes at 604km, well outside the range of the enemy missiles and torpedoes. They also were on 'home-on-emissions' mode, which allowed them to ride the enemy jamming to the target, and even if the jamming stopped, they simply turned on their AESA radars.

However, this would not be the only thing the planes would have to get through, but one of the Skyian CAPs, each consisting of 2904 F/A-84B 'Shadow' Advanced Stealth Air Superiority Fighters, they were stationed at four points around the fleet, 150km away. The only one close enough to make the intercept waited until they enemy planes collided with the enemy SAMs. Then they fired off a volley of 5,808 AIM-801L 'Lighting Strike' Extra Long Range AAMs at what remained of the enemy force. They would intercept at 574km and had the same 'home-on-emissions' mode as the Firebolts.

After the missiles were away, the fleet remained still.

"All stop!" Nixon said, and the fleet slowed to a stop as a massive salvo of 11,000 RIM-501URL Firebolt SAMs came from the fleet, from the smaller destroyers all the way up to the largest Hood class battleship. Whyatican interceptor aircraft, SuF-8 Phoenix naval fighters were being launched from the fleet carriers, armed with as many AAMs as could be packed into the frames. The plywood aircraft didn't have anti-air weaponry, so this would be a figurative turkey shoot for the surface-to-air missiles and the Whyatican aircraft. With home-on-emission mode enabled on the missiles, jamming would be far less effective and countermeasure efficacy would drop to close-to-nil on the comparitively primitive aircraft. Shorter-ranged missiles were immediately readied for the case that enemy torpedoes or anti-shipping missiles got within range of striking - but destroying as many planes as possible was the primary worry.

As the first wave of Blackhelm missiles got into range, automatic short-ranged missile systems opened fire, flooding the area where the Blackhelm missiles were coming from with thousands upon thousands of point-defense missiles. No defense system was 100% effective, naturally, and as missiles leaked through the first shield they were engaged by the smaller machine-guns onboard every single ship.

A Shockhound missile struck the destroyer IWNS Westbound Train amidships, creating a massive hole in the side of the ship and thankfully not hitting a magazine or any other vital points. The ship began listing as the damage control teams desperately tried to repair the ship and keep it moving, and sailors held their posts as their vessel listed and sank. The Commander in charge ordered the crew to abandon ship, and they were quickly picked up by a nearby destroyer.

Most of the other Shockhound missiles, having been launched from the very edge of their range, ran out of fuel due to the fact that they were basically launched at sea level and forced to go as quickly as they could. They were not designed for high-speed sea level travel, they typically didn't descend until the end of their flight, and this method burned their fuel too quckly and the majority of the Shockhound missiles dropped harmlessly into the ocean, reducing the targets of the Whyatican fleet immensely.

Space
With the final blast of the Blackhelm space station, the large 12" railgun shells were easily shot down by the laser batteries before they were finally given a chance to cool down. 400mm missiles launched from the batteries on the Whyatican Gorgons, finally used in this battle because there wasn't any point defense stopping the missiles from their targets. With the few Blackhelm space shuttles remaining, the space battle had been won and the strategic bombardment of the Blackhelm Confederacy could proceed - as soon as the missiles swatted the remaining shuttles.

IWSS Huntingdon was facing more trouble - it's side armour was being constantly pinpricked by the 3" railgun shells of the shuttles, and it lashed back with it's own heavy weaponry, using missiles and torpedoes to swarm the shuttles. A lucky shot from a shuttle impacted an already-damaged area of hull - breaching the armour and depressurizing one sector of the ship, which automatically sealed all the bulkheads in connecting areas and rerouted power as much as possible. The fire became a little more sporadic, but a Gorgon II came up on that side to cover it from fire and lend it's support against the few remaining shuttles.

General Blueshield chuckled to himself as he began to recieve the video feed from the attack group. "This is too easy" he said to himself, watching the enemies waste so many missiles on the planes. These planes cost hardly anything, the most expensive pieces on them were the missiles, and so the Confederacy could afford to continuosly chuck up these plywood contraptions by the thousands, and that was just what they had planned on doing.

The second wave was being sent up into the air as the first began to drop off their Shockhounds and start their suicide attacks. The second wave was smaller than the first, only nine thousand planes in all this time, but they would follow the same route and divided this time into three groups of three thousand planes rather than five thousand. Another difference from the first group was the load out. Although they still carried a ton of countermeasures, none carried a Shockhound. Instead, out of every group of three thousand planes two thousand of them carried an SS-N-27 anti-shipping missile while the other thousand carried a Vympel R-37. The SS-N-27's would allow them to maintain their distance just outside of the fleets short range defenses while still allowing the Whyaticans to use up the more expensive and valuable long and medium range missiles.

These planes were up in the air quickly, and proceeded to follow up in a similar pattern as their predessors. While they began to take off, another wave was being prepared of six thousand more planes. All of the Whyatican missiles that would be wasted against these unmanned units would give the manned aircraft and more importantly the air fleet that many missiles less to worry about, and would likely end up saving valuable human lines. Not only that, but there was also the thousands upon thousands of batteries on shore, all of which were waiting for the Coalition fleet to get within their range. The less missiles the Coalition had, the greater the chances of scoring a kill would be for them.

Thousands of the planes were now being struck from the sky, but it was no matter. The more missiles the Whyaticans put up against them meant less for the next waves, and since the Whyatican vessels were using VLS tubes, they would not be able to reload until the fighting was over. This gave the next wave an even higher chance of delivering their weaponry. All that the first wave planes would have to do was eat up missiles and keep the majority of the ships weaponry on them and away from the second wave. With the second wave only less than an hour behind, they hoped that the Whyatican ships would remain concentrated on them and not the planes carrying missiles. Already, almost a third of the planes were gone, and many more were falling fast.

Scandavian military intelligence had made a very important mistake, one that would likely cost the lives of many Scandavian pilots. The AAD-1's were positioned far ahead of the ground based RADAR systems, thus further extending the range of the Confederacy's anti-missile and anti-air defenses. The forward based AAD-1 balloons were able to locate the Scandavian bombers as they passed a 700km mark, and although they would be unable to fire for another three hundred kilometers, they were able to signal for units that could.

Air units were constantly in the air, awaiting the signal from the balloons that the enemy bombers were inbound. Finally, that signal came. Four hundred and twenty MiG-29's that had been on patrols along the coast immediatly reacted, and in seconds were blasting off at speeds of over Mach 2 to engage the enemy threat. Rear elements of the second group, about two hundred of the plywood aircraft that were equipped with the R-37, broke off and began to engage the enemy, launching their missiles as soon as they had a visual on the Scandavian bombers, which was alittle after they crossed over the Whyatican fleet.

Meanwhile, the plywood third assault group began to hit the skies. At the same time the first planes in this group were getting airborne, the missiles of the second group were beginning to fire, and thousands upon thousands of the Soviet made missiles were now streaking towards the escort ships at almost sea level. The missiles, unlike the Shockhounds, were made to be sea-skimmers. The Whyaticans, however, would like be lax to realize the true threat, figuring that this was another poorly planned attack. Many of the escort ships would also be unable to defend themselves, as this strike was comming in not long after the first, and due to the Whyatican anti-missiles being in a VLS format, it would take some time for the supply ships to restock them.

Meanwhile, the planes of the first wave were being struck down en masse, as were the planes of the second. The ocean was now covered in shattered bits of plywood. Still, Confederate High Command saw it worth it. Eventually, the Whyatican missile supply would wear down.

As the plywood planes continued to push against thousands of counter-battery fire, the first wings of Whyatican interceptor aircraft rocketed off the carrier flight decks. Fifty-six wings of SuF-8 'Phoenix' fighters, 504 fighters, formed in a way to attack every aspect of the massive expendable bomber attack, arming AIM-801TR 'Thunder Strike' theatre air-to-air missiles to attack as many bombers as possible before the turkey shoot with cannons began. Surface-to-air missile fire briefly stopped to allow the planes to gain altitude, but the front destroyers continued their fire to keep the planes back.

More interceptors were being prepared for launch from the carriers - the fight would largely be taken to the skies by the Whyatican and Skyian naval air power while the fleets reloaded their VLS cells and allowed them to cool. Rolling airframe missile mounts on the picket vessels opened fire on the oncoming sea-skimmer SS-N-27s, wiping out large chunks of the slow-moving missiles. As the SS-N-27 was not capable of hypersonic flight if fired at longer ranges, the defence of the fleet was essentially a turkey shoot. Hundreds of missiles dropped from the sky as others impacted the front of ships, ripping out turrets and destroying magazines. Great explosions erupted from several light destroyers, sinking them rather quickly as sailors jumped overboard in an attempt to escape death.

As the long-range and medium-range SAMs weren't needed any longer, the large battleships and cruisers stopped firing, allowing a fleet tender to pull up and begin reloading their VLS cells. The process would not be quick, but the destroyers and light cruisers had enough ammunition to continue the defence for quite a long time, and just a small fraction of the air power of the allied fleet had been launched in the defence of the fleet. Both Whyatican and Skyian fleets held in wait, for the Izistani and Scandinavian fleets to link up with the Whyaticans and Skyians. Thousands of ships were prepared to link up, and a unified naval force was far more effective than a divided one.

In space, the fleet now had a critical decision to make - immediately commence the strategic bombardment, or head back to refuel and rearm before the bombardment. Most of the officers in the fleet thought that pulling immediately away would allow Blackhelm space assets to reoccupy the space over, with another battle looming. However, rearming was desperately needed in some of the ships otherwise they would not be able to continue to fight against other possible Blackhelm spaceships, and the entire Whyatican and Skyian fleet headed back to Whyatican space-docks and stations for rearming. The bombardment would begin after that, which would save many people in Blackhelm for another day.

Each of the enemy destroyers that sunk beneath the seas would be able to pay for the plywood plane assaults in full. The cost to the Whyatican military for this war would be tremendous, of that the Confederate High Command had no doubts. By now, the third wave began to drop their own four thousand missiles, all of them speeding just above the ocean. The target of these missiles would be the six hundred "E90" class frigates that were providing cover for the fleet. Other planes were now loosing their R-37's at the Whatican and Skyian interceptors. Thousands upon thousands of Air to Air rockets were now screaming across the sky, impacting planes of both sides and sending debris raining down upon the once clear water.

At the same time as the drop of the SS-N-27's, a massive fleet of nearly a thousand Tu-142 bombers, and almost fifteen hundred MiG-31's. Each of the bombers were carrying a pair of AS-19 Koala long range cruise missiles. The AS-19 was one of the finest missiles ever to come out of the Soviet Union. With a range of three kilometers and a top speed of Mach 5, the missiles was a threat to enemy ships, even without its devastating second stage. At a hundred kilometers away from the enemy fleet, each missile will open up to reveal two warheads capable of targeting enemy ships up to a hundred kilometers apart. They would not need to target ships over such a wide area this time however.

Each of the bombers and their escorts would fly up to the balloon defense lines to provide extra protection from enemy interceptors, loose their missiles, then turn around and re-arm. This process would be repeated every three hours for the next twenty four. Four thousand of Russia's finest creations would soon appear on the enemies RADAR, many of them seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

Skyian Combat Air Patrol 'Norse'

The Skyian F/A-84Bs simply lowered speed and raised their altitude and watched the R-37s fly beyond them and explode, their radar seekers failing to aquire the very, very stealthy F/A-84s, which had an RCS less then half of that of the F-22A, however, four F/B-177s and a single EV-22 AWACs were taken out because they were too close to the action. The pilots simply moved their planes closer to the enemy, with gun range of the plywood bombs, simply ripping them to shreds with their 25mm Gas revolver cannons and air bursting ammunition.

The planes pulled off once they got closer to the fleet, letting CIWS, DP guns and even main guns with AA shells handle the last of the planes. In the end, not a single ship was hit, neither by missiles nor plywood.

More missiles climbed skyward from VLS tubes as the enemy AS-19 Koala missiles came into range, also, another group of CAP fighters flew into range of the missiles and began to fire their medium ranged weapons at them, letting lose AAM after AAM until every missile was down. Casualties included a four 'Dolphin'-Class Anti Submarine Frigate, 'Comberth'-Class Heavy Destroyer, and a 'Union'-Class Guided missile destroyer was seriously damaged when it pulled aside the Comberth to take off crew and the VLS and gun magazine exploded, it was basically dead in the water with it's bridge taken out.

INV Clyde, The Great Ocean, six hours until rendezvous with Whyatican and Skyian forces.

Private Fletcher Elliot, of the 130th Imperator’s Own Dragoon regiment, lay back in his bunk and tried to stare at the pictures of half naked women plastered to the bottom of the top bunk by some ancient denizen. The current owner of the top bunk, one Corporal Isaac Smith, was currently on his knees on the deck; vomiting profusely into a bucket. Sea sickness… damn strange aliment to befall a Dragoon (the crack aerial shock unit of the Izistani Marines), Fletcher tried to ignore the sounds and focus on just why the hell he had been crammed into a assault transport supplied by the navy and sent on his merry way to a country he’d never particularly wanted to visit in peacetime, but the thought of getting a crack at Kraven military units was too much to resist. Shame the food onboard sucked so much, a week in and he’d promised himself that when he got out, he would never touched powdered eggs again.
He listened to the creaks and groans of the ship, and was consoled in the thought that he was a MARINE and thus got to rid in the well cared for transports, the poor regular army bastards had to ride out the initial assault in hurriedly reconditioned ex-cruise liners, with god knows how many years of service on it. That and they’d be the ones doing most of the work, 130th and the accompanying regiments would seize a proper port or a fine location for a Mulberry prefabricated job, and then they could relax for a few days. He glanced around for his pillow, muttered “Oh fuck it.” And promptly fell asleep to dreams of nude women and explosions.
- - - -
The fleet plowed through the rough seas, the vast transport and logistical fleet struggling to keep with the Navy, everything well protected by the SSN screen around it.

We have arrived at last Itzerican, we are linking up with the Allied fleets now, Mechnicians in advance have installed the equipment on our allies ships allowing them to interface with our battle systems, The advance guard is engaging the enemy air assets while Tzokrillias Wing has reached optimal altitude, All hands stand ready, all Personnel at station keeping as ordered, Srihcaul Nitismien reports that her fleet has taken up positions as ordered and the Keilas Guilie is being positioned, a Pair of Kramians have adjusted Orbit, Tuhahalanseas and Zukansivan will be in position in mere hours, Damocles relay Satellites have been positioned for optimal strike as per orders and the Pilots of the Kashizirions are waiting in the Briefing room as directed,” Maznian, assistant to Itzerican Mutterama Soigan half sprinted to keep up with his commander as he stalked to the bridge of his flagship, “The end of Days” or it’s Novan equivalent, the Zelhalzooriuan, like his previous flagship it had been custom built to his exacting specifications, however this ship would not end up being chased by a furious Iccaproti in a 2 day mid air chase while Tekgineers struggled to perfect a device that had been mere theory days earlier, it’s legacy would live on to this day with unusual results, like most things concocted by the Novans, the sharp angular corridors shimmered with light as data flowed across the Nymatex walls Novan caligraphs that crewers could instantly be apprised of necessary information, the Itzerican strode down the corridor his uniform billowing behind him.

“Maznian, I want the 17th elite Air wing on standby, inform the pilots that they are to prioritize enemy defenses, I want the 13th in position to reinforce Tzokirllias should the enemy attempt to interdict them, Ensure that Ikrazens are in position to resupply and rearm as needed, I want full fire support from the Nehaldankrellzions, Inform the Vistakals to co-ordinate fire in Sonuvar pattern Inform the Kaivazan Crews that they should prioritize Vrazen rearming, I want Zykuvan launchers ready to begin volleying at the enemy, prepare blanket jamming and I want a full report on my desk in 15 minutes of enemy defenses as seen from Bondal, Inform Myeal to be wary, her space fleet is nowhere near as numerous as our allies, though she should be able to hold the position until they can return to station keeping, we can’t afford to loose that force, it depresses me that my departed former colleagues lacked the foresight to develop a broad cohesive force against threats, for us to have a force that with 10 vessels classes as half of that force but we must all start somewhere, Ixion, move us to Battle stations and begin preliminary launching,” The Itzerican and his high boned features cast a glance across the shifting data upon the walls as the voice of the AI tinkled through the corridor, in response to the Itzericans directive, while Maznian spoke into a headset relaying orders, tapping into a datapad balanced on his forearm abruptly the corridor glowed a faint blood red, and a distant throbbing could be heard, footstep echoed throughout the corridors as the pair passed through a pair of guards standing at stiff attention and through the guarded portal and into the hectic bridge as Mutterama maneuvered to his perch at the projectatab.

The fleet hurtled onwards, screaming in at frantic speed a Novan war fleet was a rare sight Novan vessels usually seen individually, less than an hour inbound to allied fleets, as they began to launch their air power, Vrazens Tokons and Voloko’s screamed into battle, while not about to imminently arrive and win the battle, soon they would make their presence felt, and elsewhere that was a presence that would eventually overwhelm their for.

High in the sky higher than the clouds, indeed nearly in orbit and out of the atmosphere soared a massive bomber fleet, Denzels equipped with a prodigious amount of munitions in addition to a healthy escort should anything survive the Vrazens that would swiftly descend to shred anything that dared challenge their mastery of the skies, their target Divinity, they carried enough munitions between the entire wing of Bombers to level the city in the style of Dresden, the Itzericans command had decided with his approval to demonstrate a clear point to the enemy, that they could not hide behind their defenses, and this strike had been tailored to simply skip enemy defenses, after all anything that could get that high would be seen an targeted by another force flying with the air wing the enemy would either let them pas or have the entire regions defenses decimated, the escort would be able to sweep the skies of any enemies that dared engage well and truly before they could even get close enough to see the Denzels, as they began their final approach they began to spread out into a wide formation, soon they would begin the rain of fire, and they had a few other surprises as well.

In orbit the Keilas Guilie moved into position, and held as a pair of Skuzariaius Cruisers docked and began charging, the small fleet surrounding the lethal particle beam weapon that required 2 of the space forces precious vessels to power, however it unlike Damocles could fire faster than 1 shot an hour, the remnants of the Tokon GX forces had enshrouded the fleet in a screen against enemy ASATs which by now would surely be depleted or have the Confederacy skating on near bankruptcy the sheer amount that had already been launched Srihacul Nitismien Myeal surveyed her meager force and heaved an inwards sigh as she surveyed her bridge, content in what little she could do had been done, the deployment was ready and soon the Particle Beam would be ready, but first initial checks needed to be done, and that would take time.

OOC: Yeah, this is not going to work. This isn't star trek, we don't use particle beams.
IC: The AS-19 missiles would continue to scream out towards the enemy fleet ever three hours on the dot. In the mean time, a hundred kilometers out, another mine field was being laid. The new minefield would circle the entire Confederacy, and it was to be almost a half a mile thick. It was assumed that the enemy woud get through, but it would still be a delaying tactic to allow more missiles to be fired. It was decided to continue to pump missiles in the direction of the enemy, and so a number of other attacks were planned. On the first hour after the launch of the AS-19's, the skies would be filled with thousands upon thousands of Babur III class cruise missiles. The missiles, developed in 2010, would improve upon the Babur I and II, extending range and giving it a speed of just a little over Mach 1.7. This, combined with the fact that it is difficult to detect on RADAR, would begin to pose quite a problem for the Whyatican/Skyian, as they would be still reloading thier missiles after fending off the AS-19's. On the second hour after the AS-19's, the sky would then be filled Kh-55 Granat missiles, the Soviet answer to the Tomahawk.

With the sheer amount of missiles being fired off every hour, the Coalition fleet would begin to find it difficult to keep their anti missile systems loaded. The job on the shores, however, was much easier, as it was different crews and units that would be making the shots.

Meanwhile, the 23rd Submarine Assault Group began to move stealthily out of port towards the enemy fleet. At 400km from the submarines would recieve the order to hold positions. The plan was for the fleet to be far to occupied with the constant missile rain that was pouring in to fully acknowledge the small fleet of stealth submarines. As a distraction, however, a number of decoy submarine fleets, now more than large metal tubes with engines and radio controls, were sent out of a number of other ports. These ships, however, would attempt to get closer to the fleet, within 35 kilometers, so that they could launch their pair of Mark 24 Tigerfish torpedoes. These submarines, however, were expected to be sunken en masse.

The Izistani fleet, which was now closing in with the rest of the Coalition, was going to be the task of the military of the province of Divinity. The Air Force of Divinity, the DSAAF had their own plan on how to handle the situation. Three hundred Tu-142 bombers would take off from just outside their beloved city, along with a compliment of seven hundred Su-27 fighters. These planes would take the long route to the Izistani fleet, going around the Whyatican/Skyian fleets and hitting the Izistani's with their Kh-55's from just under the maximum range, launching parallel to the fleet.

The ship of the Mafia fleet, were most often, improvised things. Usually old decommissioned 280mm railguns armed them.

Meanwhile all over the oceans, EMP missiles, aimed at the Whyatican homeland. It was targeted at minor outlying cities. Small towns, and from long ranges. The submarines would fire one missile and disappear. They had no intervals. It was a campaign of terror, with no purpose other than terrifying, random Whyatican.