Wanton use of nukes and the path to galactic conquest!

[Olterin]

I dread the day when I get to launch barrages of hammer heavy torpedoes... yet I also fear that that day is very, very close. I dread that day because that will mean Steve was forced into a corner, and is using it as a last resort.


Admiral, please don't forget to stay away from the action and close to 'Providence' (not too close though, we know what happened to that other Gannet... ), that'll make my escort duties much, much easier (and your life so much longer) - provided I get live warheads for fighter and bigship swatting when the need calls for it

[tuman78]

I have faith in Steve, things will go fine as long as we follow the rules!

. Pillage, then burn.
. Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.
. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
. Mockery and derision have their place. Usually, it's on the far side of the airlock.
. If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.
. There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'time to reload

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlock_Me ... ve_Pirates

[Lanky]

I have faith in Steve, things will go fine as long as we follow the rules!

. Pillage, then burn.
. Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.
. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
. Mockery and derision have their place. Usually, it's on the far side of the airlock.
. If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.
. There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'time to reload

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlock_Me ... ve_Pirates

Another Schlock fan!!

Anyways I'm ready for boarding action, Sir!

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Prev chapter<->Next chapter
96 - Terran


Well, the new ships are in, have been checked over and refitted as necessary..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/96-1.gif

.. just need to either find some pilots for them and source some appropriate ordinance or offload them on some mug willing to pay an exhorbitant price for it.

I'm undecided as yet whether to further expand Blue and Purple Wings with additional units as they're currently nicely divided into a heavy and light formation. Mixing heavy and light into a single wing might not work so well. Of course having too many ships in a single wing might cause it's own problems and I've not had sufficient opportunity to test the six-man wings to evaluate how well they're doing. I'll have to think that one over a bit, so for now the new additions will remain in Orange wing and will be on standby sector defence duty until I've decided what I plan to do with them or until attrition in the other wings gives them a slot to move into.

Rather happily '239Pu' is no longer an only child as well as a few siblings have turned up to help out with the nuke-lobbing. In fact I've now got a sizeable wing of bombers at my command, probably just about enough to mount all the Tomahawks I've currently got in storage and certainly enough to make a sizeable dent in just about anything I care to.


Meantime I've been making myself busy today building up a little goodwill with the Split and recently we we're up in Cho's Defeat running a simple ship retrieval for some Split dignitary. Seems he was forced to jump ship during a recent skirmish with a Boron freighter and consequently wanted to pay me big bucks to bring his ship back to him on the quiet, for obvious reasons, and I was in the process of doing just that when we were hailed by no less than a Terran Sabre..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/96-2.jpg

Now given my last encounter with anything Terran shaped centred around watching a Tokyo bearing down on me with murderous intent, followed by my swift exit thru the nearest airlock with the ship exploding around me.. well, you can imagine that caused me some concern. I had brief visions of half the Terran navy, the angry half, suddenly dropping thru the gates around me intent on discussing their opinion of people that attempt to jack their destroyers. Anyways, fortunately it turned out that far from having my murder in mind, he actually had someone elses, and that I'm cool with.

Yep, somehow or other it seems our rumbles with the Xenon have not gone entirely unnoticed with the powers that be and being a particularly xenophobic bunch (Xenonphobic?) this guy here had allegedly been tasked with tracking us down with a view to exchanging info on the Xenon with a possible view towards introducing other 'opportunities' my way. He'd just like me to run a little mission for him as a demonstration of willingness..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/96-3.gif

.. 2.5M to frag a couple freighters? Well, I don't normally.. but I suppose.. What, sorry? You meant 2.5M for each freighter.. Hell yeah!

So anyway, five minutes, three Hornets, and 7.5 million richer it seems I've got me a new best friend and all my hard work with the Split is down the tubes as it just so happened to be a Split convoy. Oh well, not to worry, as at least my new Terran friend is happy and I've been subsequently invited to meet the Terrans representative at the coordinates I've been supplied. If I'm willing all I have to do is rendezvous with them at the Heretics End jumpgate and then they'll escort me in from there..

Trap..?



Assets
1x Shrike 'Preemptive Shrike'
1x Phoenix 'Awesomesauce'
1x Kestrel 'Flash IV'

1x Caiman 'NMMC Storage'
1x Iguana Vanguard 'Suicide Taxi Services'

26x Vulture Miner
13x Vulture Super Freighter


Time: 7-14:37
Credits: 8,016,970

[Megamolanius]

My advice here would be to kill the Boreas, too many guns and the battlefield is already quite complex, if that thing is gone then I think is doable.

If my math is correct, taking the Boreas (1 capping) would be roughly equal in credit value to killing it and taking all the rest (4 caps). This is before any equipment which might be left over. May NS have the luck I had on my first Boreas: 17*PPC, 2*IC, 5*FAA, 2*2GJ shields, a JD, and roughly 400 ecells. An excellent haul by anybody's standards

I think you may be overlooking the 2 M7M's, those by themselves already equal the Boreas value. Greed is a good thing, at least in the circles I'm frequenting lately, but to much greed makes for a short pirating career.
Anyway if that Boreas has got flak its a no go and the odds are it has.

[Venarti]

Argon Merc: Are they really offering to give the captain a job?

Boron Merc: Of course not. It's a trap!

[Jack Slinger]

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/96-1.gif

Can I sign up for that medusa
Ship name: Silent but deadly

[JoeVN09]

G'won, chance it!

My offer still stands to pilot the next Heavy Dragon or similar that you see

[Gothsheep]

Hmmm...Terrans, huh? Is he a high or low Terran? He's USC, so he's probably a pet. They usually don't have the brains for traps. Watch out, though. If you see ATF, all bets are off.

[Tiedyeguy]

...

...

I think you may be overlooking the 2 M7M's, those by themselves already equal the Boreas value. Greed is a good thing, at least in the circles I'm frequenting lately, but to much greed makes for a short pirating career.
Anyway if that Boreas has got flak its a no go and the odds are it has.

Going by "New From Shipyard Values":
Boreas M2: 91M
Aquilo M7M*2: 38M (76M)
Skiron M6*2: 14.3M (28.6M)

.... DAMN IT! OK so if he pulled them all off 100% He'd save 13.6M over MSRP... Math has failed me (maybe the other way around though as I am a bit lysdexic...

[Lancefighter]

no, your right. However, it is much easier to take down 4 escorts and make one good boarding op, than to take down one escort and make 4 good boarding op.

[JanusTN]

No problem boss!! Paint a target for me! Want the shields gone? No problem! Boreas giving you grief, silver wing'll turn it into an expanding gas cloud!

[Killjaeden]

Boreas= lots o heavy gunz guns? want! we need more guns!
For the sake of profits it might be a better idea to destroy it though...
This time it may be a good idea to soften it via missiles because i don't think Awesomesauce has the opportunity to engage in predictable time(and with a few IBL only...)
You missileguys better not exaggerate with those red buttons, or the 2 aquillo and skiron are gone too

[Duzzit]

I'd never dream of falling asleep at the firing control button and making sure i press it with my head.

>.>

[Usenko]

Usenko looked around his bridge and saw that it was good.

True, it was probably closer to a cockpit than a bridge - a Dragon doesn't leave much room for the crew to walk around - but he had his three crew members ready. He lowered himself into the command chair - Argnu leather, nice touch - opened the panel on the armrest and touched a control.

"Comms, inform the formation leader that the Gulargambone is prepped and at his disposal."

"Aye sir!" came the snappy reply.

Usenko opened a fresh can of Diet Coke. Life was very good.

(Thanks N_S!)

[LordForrester]

WOW well done N_S! I am new to X universe and have enjoyed catching up on this story over the last 3 days. So this is not your first story? Is there a list? I found Squiddy McSquid’s Possibly Short Life and Zen and the Art of Running away. Is that all?

I would like to app:

My background.
I am the son of a former Terren lord that was sent to a religious penal colony a few years ago for not accepting the government fed garbage. He was formally a high ranking officer in the navy and had trained me up in the art of Dog fighting and capitol ship tactics.

Hearing of your feats from recent traders visiting the colony. I am applying for any position available with some hope of commanding a heavy M6 or M7 one day once I have proven myself.

Ship Name "Old Exterminator."

Thanks

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Prev chapter<->Next chapter
97 - The Good..


Quite probably, so I'll give paying the Terrans a visit a miss just for the moment I think, at least until I've got some life insurance organised anyway..

Which brings us back to the current pressing idea on the table and that's the planned invasion of Legends Home, base of operations for OTAS, a highly secretive corporation specialising in military research and development. OTAS has built up it's repuation on fearsome technology, indisputable military superiority and as a power you do not want to trifle with, so of course we plan to do exactly that. I don't know what their stock price is currently, but I suspect it'll take a hit by tomorrow when the market hears a bunch of mercenaries ram-raided OTAS HQ and made off with half their fleet from right under their noses!

Of course to do this we need a plan, and by golly I think we've got a good one. At least it had better be or this could go sour kindof quick. Fleetwise, well actually I've brought most of it. 'Awesomesauce' being a big lunk of immobility has been tasked with guarding the entry gate to the sector..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/97-1.jpg

.. so he's parked in a position just above it where he can make use of those heavy forward IBL batteries on anything substantial that comes thru the gate as backup. Just for added measure I've dropped two batches of laser towers either side of the gate and a little way into the sector, they'll provide both additional firepower to assist in bringing down any backup forces, and they're a little better at hitting fast movers than IBL rounds anyway.

That should quite adequately account for any capital ships that come thru the gate. For anything a bit smaller, Red wing is positioned a bit deeper into the sector where they can pick up them up with missiles or move to assist if I have any trouble at the front. I'm not expecting too much in the way of light craft coming thru the gate once we commence operations as the signal to start the operation also contains a coded sequence to activate this lot..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/97-2.gif

.. and that should shut the other side of the gate down to traffic quite effectively I think.

'Night Hawk II' is currently housing three wings, the usual Blue and Purple wings along with Green wing as well today. Green wing will be assigned it's usual task of chasing down any unruly fast-movers. Blue wing is on general cleanup duty and their task will be to remove all the sector security forces which consists of a mix of a dozen or so M4/M5. This should be fine with their all Hurricane loadout as there aren't any M3's around to worry about and as it's his first live-fire field test it should be interesting to see how 'Baa-Ram-Ewe' performs with the new LX he's piloting with it's full PBE loadout.

Purple wing is normally still tooling around with the Tempests but I don't think I'll have much need of them for this mission as we're not going up against any M3 class, so as a result Purple wing aren't carrying any missiles today as they'll be tasked with shield suppression instead and given they'll be dealing with some M7M's their extra shielding will be useful anyway.

The rest of the team might be a little nervous about how this ones going to play out but at least one person is a happy chappy and that's the captain of 'Providence' as having learnt his lesson and faithfully promised (on pain of a long walk out of a short airlock) not to try to frag any more Mambas with boarding pods, I've decided to not only give him some live rounds to fire today, but to let him kick things off as well. It's been made abundantly clear tho only indicated targets are to be destroyed, or I shall be... displeased.

'Shorter Bus' and myself will be running escort, for 'Providence' and the two M8 bombers I've brought along to provide the heavy fire support that are tucked up underneath us out of sight. While they'll be playing an important role, lock-up target and press the shiny red button is not a remarkably taxing excercise so I've brought a couple of the newbie M8 pilots along to give them a little experience.

I've brought just one more ship along for this particular operation, and that's one of my TLs. Probably seems an odd choice to bring a TL to a fleet battle, but I've a particular need in this case as the targetting computers on 'Providence' are about as compos mentis as the ships captain and when they have live warheads on board they have a really bad habit of selecting the live ones in preference to the boarding variety despite instructions to the contrary. COnsequently I need a TL to be able to offload any spare missiles to prior to us actually commencing boarding operations. Besides, spare fuel is always useful to have to hand.

I think that just about covers everyone and with everyone with their assigned roles it's just a question of disposition of forces and I think we've got that covered..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/steve/97-3.gif

.. We're good to go..



Assets
1x Shrike 'Preemptive Shrike'
1x Phoenix 'Awesomesauce'
1x Kestrel 'Flash IV'

1x Caiman 'NMMC Storage'
1x Iguana Vanguard 'Suicide Taxi Services'

26x Vulture Miner
13x Vulture Super Freighter


Time: 7-22:28
Credits: 644,117

[Musicker]

Locked and Loaded - I await the blow-by-blow account with bated breath!

[Doc Quixotic]

It's gone be Legen ..... wait for it ....... DARY !

[JanusTN]

Funny... Why does my shiny red button have the word "Easy" Laser Etched into it? Oh well!