SUPER-SIZE McOMAKE!
Thule System, Free Rasalhague Republic, 3050
"We are Clan Ghost Bear. This world is ours. Those who dispute our claim must identify the size and location of their forces for immediate disposal."
"This is Admiral Griffith of the New Terran Hegemony Navy. To claim this world, you must first reach this world. We bid the WarShip McEvedy's Legacy to dispute your claim."
Admiral Griffith gave a wry smirk as the transmission from the Ghost Bears cut off with a strangled cry of disbelief and rage.
"Ma'am, both enemy battlecruisers have broken formation and are boosting on a direct intercept course for us. We have solid IDs from their emissions profiles now: one Black Lion class and one Cameron class."
“Very well. Mark their tracks and alert me if anything changes."
-----
Three days later….
General Quarters, General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations! Set material condition Zebra throughout the ship! This is not a drill!
In many ways, ordering battle stations on a combat starship was merely a formality. Even coming in from a relatively close pirate point at the highest sustainable thrust levels, it took hours to days for a WarShip or DropShip to reach anything worth fighting over after jumping into a system. And since it was generally impossible to conceal the energy signature of fusion torch drives, you generally knew well in advance if you were going to be doing battle when you got there.
Well-trained naval spacers were downright fanatical about keeping their ships prepared for high-G burns, keeping all objects that could become hazards during maneuvering securely stowed at all times. As a result, there was little to do but maintain their regular watches and catch as much rest as they could while the ship moved into position. But the pre-combat stress always caught up to everyone, ensuring that the crew was actually up and ready well before the official alarms sounded.
This was even more true than usual today, because everyone on board the McEvedy’s Legacy knew that today they would face full-fledged enemy warships not just for the first time in their careers, but for the first time in nearly two hundred years of human history.
After the fall of the Terran Hegemony in the Amaris Civil War and the subsequent mass desertion of the Star League Defense Force, all five remaining member powers had almost instantly turned on each other. The First Succession War had seen the so-called “Successor States” brutally wipe out most of each others’ fleets and all of each others’ ability to produce faster-than-light warships, and the Second Succession War finished off the decaying handful which remained. Since then, the economically and technologically devastated powers had continued their bloody wars by lesser means; they jealously hoarded ruined WarShip hulks which could theoretically be restored to some semblance of functionality, but sullenly accepted an informal detente in which all refrained from the ruinously expensive attempts to do so as long as no one else was either.
But now the deserters had returned in force as the invading "Clans", complete with the WarShips they had left in. . .
. . . and Griffin’s Roost was the only power in the Inner Sphere with WarShips to reply.
“All stations report manned and ready.”
-----
McEvedy’s Legacy had been designed as a “quality over quantity” design that was still relatively affordable and could be mass produced. This was accomplished primarily by offloading all of her transport, support, and logistics functions onto dedicated parasite DropShips -- whereas Star League battleships reserved ten to twenty percent of their total mass for cargo and also carried a substantial number of aerospace fighters, the Legacy utilized an overpowered Kearny-Fuchida jump core to carry more DropShips than any other WarShip in history, then devoted practically every remaining kilogram to guns, armor, ammunition, and thrusters.
The result was a battleship which was over twenty percent percent smaller than the Star League's signature McKenna class, but boasted comparable firepower and almost three times the armor protection while still being just as fast and maneuverable. You could build an entire second McKenna for what that stupendous drive core cost, but it would take *five* McKennas to match her DropShip carrying capacity.
Of course, the Legacy wasn't facing McKennas today. Unless the Clans had radically rebuilt the original Star League designs, neither of the two battlecruisers was actually any faster than she was; the Black Lion could only match her acceleration, and the infamously overweight Cameron was actually slower. Both were nonetheless dangerous opponents; the Black Lion’s oversized battery of medium-caliber naval autocannons meant she actually had more firepower than the Legacy in her optimal range band, and the Cameron was similarly armed with medium-caliber naval autocannons plus a long-range battery of the same heavy naval particle cannons and heavy naval lasers as the Legacy.
Given that the McEvedy’s Legacy was a heavier warship with capabilities completely unknown to her opponents, the wisest move would have been to attack in close conjunction, holding back the acceleration of the Black Lion in order to avoid outpacing the Cameron. Admiral Grffith’s open declaration of affiliation with Clan Wolverine -- a lone Clan which had broken from the rest and been ordered exterminated, but was feared to have sent survivors back to the Inner Sphere -- had been ruthlessly calculated to goad them into a more aggressive attack, and it worked.
Still, the Clanners were experienced warriors and far from stupid. The Black Lion accelerated well ahead of her companion, but flipped to decelerate well before reaching any known weapons range, reducing her closing speed and then boosting “sideways” at her full 2.5-gravity overthrust to force McEvedy’s Legacy to either follow suit or cede control of the engagement. The Legacy followed the maneuver but held back to 2 gravities, falling “behind” laterally as the ships’ courses shifted from flying directly at each other to slanting in at shallow diagonals. The plodding Cameron continued to accelerate at its plodding 1.5 Gs without turnover, clearly angling for a close-range pass across the stern of the Legacy while it was pinned by its engagement with the Black Lion.
“We’re clearly reading all the same books.” noted Admiral Griffith. “Textbook SLDF tactics all around. Are their DropShips burning for the planet?”
“Negative, they’re staying close to the JumpShips at the nadir point. Six Monolith class, eight Invader class, eight Merchant class, and seven Scout class. That’s collars for a hundred and nine DropShips to our thirty, but most of theirs are transports.”
“I’d rather not risk letting them reach the planet if they decide that our support justifies including the people down there in their ‘Trial of Annihilation’ against the Wolverines. Send in the DropShips.”
“Yes ma’am.” The Legacy’s captain nodded to the lieutenant at the communications console.
“McEvedy’s Legacy to all auxiliaries. Burn clear and intercept the enemy DropShips at the nadir point.”
The Legacy’s shoal of parasite War Goose carriers and Odysseus pocket corvettes split away in hard overthrust burns, angling their courses to circle around the incoming Clan WarShips.
Just over thirty Clan AeroSpace fighters sped out at even higher accelerations to meet them -- a suicidally bold move for so few ASFs, since each of the corvettes and carriers mounted a pair of AR10 capital missile launchers. Sixty Barracuda anti-fighter missiles spat into the void, then sixty more; there was no need for a third volley.
Following their orders to burn clear rather than passing close enough to harass the enemy capital ships, the DropShips adjusted their course to remain well outside of effective weapons range. The Cameron -- now close enough for her nameplate to be read as the Dieron’s Run -- nonetheless fired her broadside naval PPCs. The signature blue-lightning streaks of the particle cannons splashed harmlessly over the passing DropShips, a calculated insult to their “cowardice” for not engaging.
Had they remained at full thrust, the DropShips could have intercepted their enemy counterparts before the three WarShips came within battle range of each other. But sustained high-G operation was physically exhausting, and there was no point in pushing it -- the Clan DropShips would under no circumstance return to their parent JumpShips and retreat in the face of the hated Not-Named Clan.
----
Space combat was silent death in the cold void.
"Commence firing."
The Legacy’s 55-centimeter lasers energized at the push of a button, each battery pulsing a dozen invisible beams of coherent gamma radiation downrange. Unlike the smaller-scale versions used by Battlemechs and AeroSpace Fighters, capital lasers did not bother with visible-frequency beam guides; the extreme precision required to score hits at starship combat ranges made that sort of manual targeting moot. In the same heartbeat, scorch-edged burns seared into the armored flank of the Bear’s Den.
"Solid hits, Admiral. They are penetrated and leaking air.”
"Very good. Continue the engagement."
Unable to return fire with her harder-hitting but shorter-range autocannons, the Black Lion -- her nameplate declared her to be the Bear’s Den -- went to maximum overthrust on a least-time trajectory, trying to push into range as quickly as possible. The Legacy responded by angling away at her own full acceleration, two-and-a-half gravities of acceleration brutally hammering her crew down into their shock-framed seats. She couldn’t hold the range open without giving up the engagement and thrusting directly away from Bear’s Den, but she only needed to minimize the rate of closure in order to make the most of her range advantage.
Still out of range and falling even further behind, Dieron’s Run fired her forward PPCs, splashing the Legacy’s broadside to even more negligible effect than it had on the DropShips.
----
By the time the Legacy’s lasers had cooled and recharged for a second salvo, her heavy naval PPCs were in range as well, sending a rolling barrage of blue-white lightning streaks downrange as an eye-searing counterpart to the aft laser bay. Still unable to reply directly, the Bear’s Den maintained her acceleration while twisting into an eccentric spiral. . . but that was a textbook evasive maneuver, and the PPC salvos had been aimed for it. Three of the five PPC batteries struck home, shattering craters into the battlecruiser’s armor, and an unstoppable surge of power backlashed wildly into her electrical systems.
“Engine hit! Her acceleration’s dropping!” came the triumphant report.
“Vampire, vampire, vampire! Two capital missiles inbound from the Dieron’s Run. No fire control, they’re firing blind on a ballistic course. Anti-missile systems are tracking.”
The Legacy’s lasers and particle cannons unleashed a third combined salvo into the bow of the Bear’s Den as the defensive pulse lasers came online in stuttering green streaks.
“Both vampires intercepted, but we’ve got seven more incoming -- two from Dieron’s Run and five from Bear’s Den. Lacie says she can handle that, but only just. Even with the new extended-range pulses, these are a lot harder to knock down than the usual fare.”
By the third salvo, it was clear that the Bear’s Den was in a hopeless situation -- she was still closing in on the Legacy, but the hit to her engines had lamed her enough that she no longer had any chance of reaching the bigger ship with her autocannons before she was torn apart. The Clanners had to know that, but they held grimly to their course, still rushing onwards as the fourth and fifth salvos slashed in.
“Aspect change! She’s trying to clear her broadside. . .”
Turning her broadside to the Legacy would expose fresh, undamaged armor and allow the Bear’s Den to fire all six of her missile launchers. . . but it also meant cutting her acceleration, and against the Legacy’s range advantage all it would mean was a drawn-out death. It was also too late -- the Legacy’s sixth salvo was already in space, and this time every single PPC struck home.
Defiant to the bitter end, the Bear’s Den hurled a futile autocannon salvo at her killer as she disappeared forever in a blinding burst of fusion plasma, taking with her Khan Karl Bourjon. Dieron’s Run frantically flipped and boosted for the jump limit, leaving behind the stranded JumpShips and DropShipsand carrying a message that would throw the Clans into absolute havoc:
“Run, little cruiser. Run and tell your Clans that justice has come and Kerensky’s crimes will soon be revealed to the entire Sphere.”
----
(( For the record, I rolled it all fair and square using the current Battleforce rules and Google’s dice roller. The Legacy used bracket fire mode to increase the accuracy of her firing at the cost of only doing 40% damage, and consistently rolled a 50% hit rate for all of her salvos except the last one, when ALL five PPC batteries rolled hits and only the laser battery missed. ))
Thule System, Free Rasalhague Republic, 3050
"We are Clan Ghost Bear. This world is ours. Those who dispute our claim must identify the size and location of their forces for immediate disposal."
"This is Admiral Griffith of the New Terran Hegemony Navy. To claim this world, you must first reach this world. We bid the WarShip McEvedy's Legacy to dispute your claim."
Admiral Griffith gave a wry smirk as the transmission from the Ghost Bears cut off with a strangled cry of disbelief and rage.
"Ma'am, both enemy battlecruisers have broken formation and are boosting on a direct intercept course for us. We have solid IDs from their emissions profiles now: one Black Lion class and one Cameron class."
“Very well. Mark their tracks and alert me if anything changes."
-----
Three days later….
General Quarters, General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations! Set material condition Zebra throughout the ship! This is not a drill!
In many ways, ordering battle stations on a combat starship was merely a formality. Even coming in from a relatively close pirate point at the highest sustainable thrust levels, it took hours to days for a WarShip or DropShip to reach anything worth fighting over after jumping into a system. And since it was generally impossible to conceal the energy signature of fusion torch drives, you generally knew well in advance if you were going to be doing battle when you got there.
Well-trained naval spacers were downright fanatical about keeping their ships prepared for high-G burns, keeping all objects that could become hazards during maneuvering securely stowed at all times. As a result, there was little to do but maintain their regular watches and catch as much rest as they could while the ship moved into position. But the pre-combat stress always caught up to everyone, ensuring that the crew was actually up and ready well before the official alarms sounded.
This was even more true than usual today, because everyone on board the McEvedy’s Legacy knew that today they would face full-fledged enemy warships not just for the first time in their careers, but for the first time in nearly two hundred years of human history.
After the fall of the Terran Hegemony in the Amaris Civil War and the subsequent mass desertion of the Star League Defense Force, all five remaining member powers had almost instantly turned on each other. The First Succession War had seen the so-called “Successor States” brutally wipe out most of each others’ fleets and all of each others’ ability to produce faster-than-light warships, and the Second Succession War finished off the decaying handful which remained. Since then, the economically and technologically devastated powers had continued their bloody wars by lesser means; they jealously hoarded ruined WarShip hulks which could theoretically be restored to some semblance of functionality, but sullenly accepted an informal detente in which all refrained from the ruinously expensive attempts to do so as long as no one else was either.
But now the deserters had returned in force as the invading "Clans", complete with the WarShips they had left in. . .
. . . and Griffin’s Roost was the only power in the Inner Sphere with WarShips to reply.
“All stations report manned and ready.”
-----
McEvedy’s Legacy had been designed as a “quality over quantity” design that was still relatively affordable and could be mass produced. This was accomplished primarily by offloading all of her transport, support, and logistics functions onto dedicated parasite DropShips -- whereas Star League battleships reserved ten to twenty percent of their total mass for cargo and also carried a substantial number of aerospace fighters, the Legacy utilized an overpowered Kearny-Fuchida jump core to carry more DropShips than any other WarShip in history, then devoted practically every remaining kilogram to guns, armor, ammunition, and thrusters.
The result was a battleship which was over twenty percent percent smaller than the Star League's signature McKenna class, but boasted comparable firepower and almost three times the armor protection while still being just as fast and maneuverable. You could build an entire second McKenna for what that stupendous drive core cost, but it would take *five* McKennas to match her DropShip carrying capacity.
Of course, the Legacy wasn't facing McKennas today. Unless the Clans had radically rebuilt the original Star League designs, neither of the two battlecruisers was actually any faster than she was; the Black Lion could only match her acceleration, and the infamously overweight Cameron was actually slower. Both were nonetheless dangerous opponents; the Black Lion’s oversized battery of medium-caliber naval autocannons meant she actually had more firepower than the Legacy in her optimal range band, and the Cameron was similarly armed with medium-caliber naval autocannons plus a long-range battery of the same heavy naval particle cannons and heavy naval lasers as the Legacy.
Given that the McEvedy’s Legacy was a heavier warship with capabilities completely unknown to her opponents, the wisest move would have been to attack in close conjunction, holding back the acceleration of the Black Lion in order to avoid outpacing the Cameron. Admiral Grffith’s open declaration of affiliation with Clan Wolverine -- a lone Clan which had broken from the rest and been ordered exterminated, but was feared to have sent survivors back to the Inner Sphere -- had been ruthlessly calculated to goad them into a more aggressive attack, and it worked.
Still, the Clanners were experienced warriors and far from stupid. The Black Lion accelerated well ahead of her companion, but flipped to decelerate well before reaching any known weapons range, reducing her closing speed and then boosting “sideways” at her full 2.5-gravity overthrust to force McEvedy’s Legacy to either follow suit or cede control of the engagement. The Legacy followed the maneuver but held back to 2 gravities, falling “behind” laterally as the ships’ courses shifted from flying directly at each other to slanting in at shallow diagonals. The plodding Cameron continued to accelerate at its plodding 1.5 Gs without turnover, clearly angling for a close-range pass across the stern of the Legacy while it was pinned by its engagement with the Black Lion.
“We’re clearly reading all the same books.” noted Admiral Griffith. “Textbook SLDF tactics all around. Are their DropShips burning for the planet?”
“Negative, they’re staying close to the JumpShips at the nadir point. Six Monolith class, eight Invader class, eight Merchant class, and seven Scout class. That’s collars for a hundred and nine DropShips to our thirty, but most of theirs are transports.”
“I’d rather not risk letting them reach the planet if they decide that our support justifies including the people down there in their ‘Trial of Annihilation’ against the Wolverines. Send in the DropShips.”
“Yes ma’am.” The Legacy’s captain nodded to the lieutenant at the communications console.
“McEvedy’s Legacy to all auxiliaries. Burn clear and intercept the enemy DropShips at the nadir point.”
The Legacy’s shoal of parasite War Goose carriers and Odysseus pocket corvettes split away in hard overthrust burns, angling their courses to circle around the incoming Clan WarShips.
Just over thirty Clan AeroSpace fighters sped out at even higher accelerations to meet them -- a suicidally bold move for so few ASFs, since each of the corvettes and carriers mounted a pair of AR10 capital missile launchers. Sixty Barracuda anti-fighter missiles spat into the void, then sixty more; there was no need for a third volley.
Following their orders to burn clear rather than passing close enough to harass the enemy capital ships, the DropShips adjusted their course to remain well outside of effective weapons range. The Cameron -- now close enough for her nameplate to be read as the Dieron’s Run -- nonetheless fired her broadside naval PPCs. The signature blue-lightning streaks of the particle cannons splashed harmlessly over the passing DropShips, a calculated insult to their “cowardice” for not engaging.
Had they remained at full thrust, the DropShips could have intercepted their enemy counterparts before the three WarShips came within battle range of each other. But sustained high-G operation was physically exhausting, and there was no point in pushing it -- the Clan DropShips would under no circumstance return to their parent JumpShips and retreat in the face of the hated Not-Named Clan.
----
Space combat was silent death in the cold void.
"Commence firing."
The Legacy’s 55-centimeter lasers energized at the push of a button, each battery pulsing a dozen invisible beams of coherent gamma radiation downrange. Unlike the smaller-scale versions used by Battlemechs and AeroSpace Fighters, capital lasers did not bother with visible-frequency beam guides; the extreme precision required to score hits at starship combat ranges made that sort of manual targeting moot. In the same heartbeat, scorch-edged burns seared into the armored flank of the Bear’s Den.
"Solid hits, Admiral. They are penetrated and leaking air.”
"Very good. Continue the engagement."
Unable to return fire with her harder-hitting but shorter-range autocannons, the Black Lion -- her nameplate declared her to be the Bear’s Den -- went to maximum overthrust on a least-time trajectory, trying to push into range as quickly as possible. The Legacy responded by angling away at her own full acceleration, two-and-a-half gravities of acceleration brutally hammering her crew down into their shock-framed seats. She couldn’t hold the range open without giving up the engagement and thrusting directly away from Bear’s Den, but she only needed to minimize the rate of closure in order to make the most of her range advantage.
Still out of range and falling even further behind, Dieron’s Run fired her forward PPCs, splashing the Legacy’s broadside to even more negligible effect than it had on the DropShips.
----
By the time the Legacy’s lasers had cooled and recharged for a second salvo, her heavy naval PPCs were in range as well, sending a rolling barrage of blue-white lightning streaks downrange as an eye-searing counterpart to the aft laser bay. Still unable to reply directly, the Bear’s Den maintained her acceleration while twisting into an eccentric spiral. . . but that was a textbook evasive maneuver, and the PPC salvos had been aimed for it. Three of the five PPC batteries struck home, shattering craters into the battlecruiser’s armor, and an unstoppable surge of power backlashed wildly into her electrical systems.
“Engine hit! Her acceleration’s dropping!” came the triumphant report.
“Vampire, vampire, vampire! Two capital missiles inbound from the Dieron’s Run. No fire control, they’re firing blind on a ballistic course. Anti-missile systems are tracking.”
The Legacy’s lasers and particle cannons unleashed a third combined salvo into the bow of the Bear’s Den as the defensive pulse lasers came online in stuttering green streaks.
“Both vampires intercepted, but we’ve got seven more incoming -- two from Dieron’s Run and five from Bear’s Den. Lacie says she can handle that, but only just. Even with the new extended-range pulses, these are a lot harder to knock down than the usual fare.”
By the third salvo, it was clear that the Bear’s Den was in a hopeless situation -- she was still closing in on the Legacy, but the hit to her engines had lamed her enough that she no longer had any chance of reaching the bigger ship with her autocannons before she was torn apart. The Clanners had to know that, but they held grimly to their course, still rushing onwards as the fourth and fifth salvos slashed in.
“Aspect change! She’s trying to clear her broadside. . .”
Turning her broadside to the Legacy would expose fresh, undamaged armor and allow the Bear’s Den to fire all six of her missile launchers. . . but it also meant cutting her acceleration, and against the Legacy’s range advantage all it would mean was a drawn-out death. It was also too late -- the Legacy’s sixth salvo was already in space, and this time every single PPC struck home.
Defiant to the bitter end, the Bear’s Den hurled a futile autocannon salvo at her killer as she disappeared forever in a blinding burst of fusion plasma, taking with her Khan Karl Bourjon. Dieron’s Run frantically flipped and boosted for the jump limit, leaving behind the stranded JumpShips and DropShipsand carrying a message that would throw the Clans into absolute havoc:
“Run, little cruiser. Run and tell your Clans that justice has come and Kerensky’s crimes will soon be revealed to the entire Sphere.”
----
(( For the record, I rolled it all fair and square using the current Battleforce rules and Google’s dice roller. The Legacy used bracket fire mode to increase the accuracy of her firing at the cost of only doing 40% damage, and consistently rolled a 50% hit rate for all of her salvos except the last one, when ALL five PPC batteries rolled hits and only the laser battery missed. ))
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