BIG OLD DATADUMP. THIS BRIEFING SESSION COMES RIGHT IN THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY, NOT LONG AFTER MEETING CAPTAIN QUAR. IT'S USEFUL AS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FALADHI AND THEIR ORDER OF BATTLE AS WELL AS UPDATING THE READER ON THE STATUS OF CAPTAIN QUAR. WAYS TO IMPROVE THIS SO FAR: 1) QUAR COULD REVIEW THE BATTLE THAT LEAD TO HIS UNITS RETREATING AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MEETING. 2) TWO MEETINGS, ONE WHERE QUAR REORGANIZES THE FLEET A DAY AFTER THE RETREAT, AND ANOTHER TWO WEEKS LATER WHEN HE WORKS UP HIS NERVE. I LIKE THIS BECAUSE IT'S MORE REALISTIC, KEEPS THE MEETINGS FROM BEING TOO LONG, AND ALLOWS US TO EXPLORE QUAR'S COWARDICE AND FEAR INBETWEEN THE TWO. 3) INCLUDE DISCUSSION OF FALADHI DREADNOUGHT ARMS, CHANGING TARGET PROFILES, AND HOW THAT WOULD AND WOULD NOT IRRITATE DALVITAN TARGETING SOFTWARE.
Captain Quar floated down the hall. Sensors in the doorframe quietly opened the hatch, and after steadying himself he pushed himself through.
"I suppose we have these to thank." He said quietly to his first officer. There was a faint light near the next door some four meters away as the tunnel bottlenecked claustrophobically. The pleasant offwhite colors of the standard corridors had given way to dark composites laced with arm-thick bundles of reinforcing fiber.
"I'm sorry, sir?" asked his first officer. Quar paused and tapped the walls.
"Oh, I was just referring to the ship's structural elements." Quar smiled weakly, and continued on. The passage between structural frames quickly ended and they reentered the familiar well lit passageways, floating along. His first officer continued to give him a puzzled look.
Quar shrugged. "The damage control division reports we had a bad structural failure coming in fifteen alpha gamma."
"Ah." said his first officer. They both knew quite well what a shearing fracture in the Loner's skeletal structure would have meant. "Are we going to move out after the briefing, then, sir?"
Quar barked a grim laugh. "We're going to have to, aren't we?", Quar said as they keyed open the door to the meeting chamber.
Quar took a seat, his executive officer hurriedly grabbing the adjacent one. Apart from Quar, his surviving battlegroup captains and a number of senior officers were assembled, all competing to see who could least show the effects of stress and fatigue.
"I'm glad you all could spare the time from your own ships to join me here on the Loner," Quar began after a few awkward seconds of marshalling his thoughts. "I'd like to start with an informal rundown on the logistical situation.
"We're deployed about three light months away from the primary around a very small icy body." With a gesture Quar summoned a diagram of their deployment. "We've been running our refueling and resupply operations off of its surface ices, as well as patching up surface damage. Our capital ships are deployed in a defensive globe around the object." The formation maximized sensor coverage, as well as allowed uniform access to the planetoid below.
"Our lighter elements have been clustered around the Memory," another of Quar's battleships, "in order to make best use of their repair capability. Our light bubble has expanded to include a number of medium scale passive sensor outposts, but is still two months from the inner solar system and all known enemy positions."
Quar waved his hand again and brought up a series of charts and schematics of his units. "We stand at marginal combat readiness, having patched as much surface armor damage as we can and restocked on fusion fuel and exhaust mass. Our power cores are in peak condition and we've got plenty of coolant for rapid maneuvering. We've been unable to restore any of the major structural problems in any of our heavy units, nor replace any of our weapon systems. Miracle and Curtain have both lost three engines; Curtain will need to idle another just to thrust straight. Loner's taken heavy damage to our aft structure and I've been advised we can't risk more than 75% acceleration even in combat."
Quar's chief engineer nodded stiffly. Quar took a deep breathe and continued. "We've managed to salvage Danger," Quar's fourth battleship, "but we'll have to keep her out of any combat operations for at least another month. All of our ships took damage to the radiator arrays but Danger took hits on all primary servos. She's lost eighteen engines and has major structural failures around the primary weapons array. I'm sorry, Captain Remen, but I'm not risking your crew any further."
Remen
, a strongly-built woman, smiled softly. "I'd do no different if I were you, Captain. And we won't be alone."
"No." Quar shook his head. "Danger's going to be joined by the cruiser Day and the destroyers Ride and Ascetic. They all have functional FTL drives, though with varying damage, so Danger will have plenty of cover and the ability to call for help if necessary. We have one functional cruiser and six lightly damaged destroyers besides those mentioned. Thought, Shadow, and Peregrine are in best condition.
"
Quar changed the diagram again. "I've ordered parasite operations to finish by the end of the day." The diagram showed the attached mining and hauling craft returning to their mother ships. "It's concievable that the enemy could have gained control of the system's passive sensor network and begun detecting our operations, so we need to be able to run at a moment's notice."
His assembled battlegroup captains all nodded, but Quar noticed uncertainty amongst the other officers he'd requested joining the conference. "We can't afford to lose the shuttles if we do get bushwacked, and we can't afford a slugging match with any force they do bring against us. I've already sent your navigators a list of rally points I've picked throughout the outer system. We're going to be keeping to either the second planet," Quar indicated a large gas giant, "or the Kuiper belt. If there is an enemy attack and if I or the command ship is incapacitated, you are to move to one of the locations on this list and rendezvous with the rest of the fleet."
"Fleet, sir?" asked Captain Jesso. Jesso was one of Quar's battleship captains, of the Curtain.
"That brings me to the next order of business. We sent out three destroyers as couriers reporting the extent of the attack to various nearby fleet bases but have recieved no reply. I estimate at least a month for reinforcements to arrive even if they got organized immediately."
Quar set his hand down heavily and with no conscious effort adopted a stern expression. "We have to continue operations in this system. Independent of support. The enemy currently has no reason to believe we stayed, and is probably moving through the orbital habitats and structures to solidify their control. It must not go unchallenged. We need to reorganize to make this happen, and so we're going to set up like a proper fleet."
Quar kept going despite the visible bewilderment bouncing from officer to officer present. "I've asked Commander Kell of the Miracle to serve as operations department head. My executive officer, Commander Lena, will head up fleet intelligence. Lieutenant Urem, you've got FTL. Captain Tein will be in charge of logistics, and Major Al'tar will be commander of ground forces." Silence reigned. "Any questions?"
Heads shook around the table. "I've assigned several officers from each capital ship to assist each department. You have my full authority and blessings to requisition the services of any other officer you require."
Captain Tein looked around, then raised an eyebrow at Quar. "Do you have specific orders for these fleet departments, Captain, or are we merely to use this as an organizational chart?"
Quar nodded. "Fleet intelligence has prepared a briefing on the enemy forces in this system at my request. I've also contacted Commander Kell several times over this past few weeks to set up the rally points and reorganize the battlegroup C3 networks." Faces brightened around the table. "Your ship's repair and maintainance capacity was the least damaged in the attack, Captain Tein, so you've been performing impromptu logistics duties already. we're going to need to prepare for the long haul, too, so any solution your engineering staff can come up with for our structural problems and deep armor failures will be your top priority. FTL, make sure all ships have updated dislocation solutions for all listed rally points. I will take responsibility for fleet maneuvering and tactical control. Ground, I'll need you to keep several teams organized for boarding and capture operations at all times."
The major, a slim, elfin man with pale skin and a fastidiously trimmed moustache, nodded. "I think I know what you mean. We're not going anywhere near a major shipyard or munitions factory anytime soon, are we?"
"No, Major." Quar glanced at the man, then back to the group as a whole. "I'll be coming up with some more detailed lists, but in the meantime we've still got plenty of repairs to keep us busy so I hope your current instructions will keep you out of trouble."
Commander Lena looked at Quar, who nodded and took a seat. The commander stood. "I'd like to present an update on the enemy now, as per the group captain's request."
A series of starship schematics appeared. "We have no further analysis of Faladhi motives or culture at this time, but I have been in contact with a number of systems software and engineering personnel and have prepared a more in-depth overview of their combat units and technology."
An image of a spherical object coated with armored pipes appeared. "Dalvitan FTL technology, the dislocation drive, requires a drive generator massing at least twenty million tons and increasing up to about fifty million for the largest generators." The drive produced a bubble of distorted space time that lasted for a very small fraction of a second, but allowed travel at relatively impossible speeds and the bridging of great distances, several dozen light years at a go, nearly instantly. The effect dissipated as soon as the bubble was warped beyond a small safety margin - usually by traveling close to a massive object, warping spacetime with its own gravitational field.
The commander continued, "The massive size of these drives means that warships adhere to a size range. Too small, you can't fit a drive. Too large, and the intense waste heat generated by the dislocation melts the drive after a single jump. Attack parasites can accompany capital ships inside the dislocation bubble, but only in small number."
The image changed to show an infrared image of an alien starship. "Faladhi starships appear to use the same effect to travel, and passive scans show they use drive cores of roughly the same size. This would imply that they are subject to the same rules of construction and travel that we are. Recent analysis shows that to be incorrect."
"What?" asked Captain Jesso loudly over the rumblings of surprise. "What do you mean, incorrect?"
Commander Lena changed the image to show a complex graph. "When one of our ships makes a dislocation, there is some ambient dust and gas inside the dislocation bubble. If you've got the right instrument looking at an arriving starship, you can analyze the composition of those hitchhiking particles and figure out how near the departure point was to a star, what kind of star it was, and cross reference to get probable points of origin. Our sensor systems and command computers were in contact with the planetary defense observatories at the time of the attack. I was digging through the information we gathered during that time to try and find where the enemy attack was staging from. There were no foreign dust grains or charged particles brought along with the enemy attack forces."
"So they were staging from this system? The outskirts perhaps?" asked Captain Remen.
Lena shook his head. "No. If it was the outskirts, the composition would be different. Fewer particles from the solar wind. More ice granules. At first I thought they might have staged from nearby voids, relatively empty patches of interstellar space, but even then they should have been bringing along some neutral hydrogen atoms or similar detritus. I found nothing. Not even highly lensed photons."
Puzzled faces stared back at Lena. "What... what does this imply?" asked Remen.
"I'm getting to that. In my analysis I began looking at the enemy's hull armor - trying to find any indication that it had run through a particular type of space dust or gas. Ships build up static charge and can accumulate a coating of space material as they travel. I discovered a very high concentration of multiply-ionized iron atoms. I initially disregarded my findings as contaminated by some sort of solar event, but then I realized that even flares or mass ejections cannot reach the point temperatures necessary to produce the iron atoms I found in the hulls of all the enemy ships. It would have to come from a very massive star." Lena said.
"There aren't any massive stars nearby. The Union occupies a region of middle-aged dwarf stars." Jesso said skeptically.
"Yes sir. The nearest large O and B type stars, suitably large enough to have high concentrations of these atoms, are in a loose association some two hundred fifty light years downspin." Lena quoted the cluster's identification code and brought up a schematic of it. As the assembled captains voiced their confusion, Lena continued. "They did not merely use this location as a rally point to make a series of dislocations insystem. This was the very last place they visited before coming here. They can move at least ten times further than we can per jump."
There was a moment of profound silence, then clamor. Quar shouted the room back to silence, then motioned for Lena to continue.
"There's... there's more." The commander swallowed. "Their drive fields don't seem to be the bubbles we use, either, or there would be some of that O and B star solar wind trapped in it while they jumped. Instead, they must be generating drive fields that hug the forms of their ships."
Many officers sputtered, but Jesso smiled to himself. "That must explain it. Our drive bubbles have a particular shape - a sort of prolate spheroid. That's why our ships tend to be flat and broad, to fill the space economically while still leaving room for parasites. They had their parasites physically clamped to their ships. I've been wondering about that."
Lena nodded. "My team reached the same conclusion, sir. We didn't make any headway on the workings of such a mechanism. In addition, the added mass of their sublight parasites indicates the jump they took from the massive star formation into our territory is not the upper limit of their jump range."
"A rather disquieting thought. If they can maintain a warp bubble so much longer than us, or move it so much faster than us, how come they can't make smaller jump engines? I thought their ships were comparable to ours." Captain Remen said.
"Not entirely. We know they use large single dislocation engines like we do, which constrains them to roughly the same ship sizes. I've updated our existing enemy ship recognition chart with this new information, as well as several decoded transmissions listing Faladhi designations and known ships of each type."
Captain Jesso whistled low. "You've had your executive officer doing all of this, Captain Quar? Who's been running your ship?"
Quar barked a short laugh. "Well, it has taken me almost two full weeks to work out the reorganization. Please continue, commander."
Lena nodded, and then displayed an image of a diamond shaped craft. "This is the Faladhi sublight attack parasite. The Faladhi designation is Helot-class. It is oriented towards a rapid close range strike, equipped with a battery of gigawatt-range lasers as well as combat radiators and a number of missile tubes. Surprisingly the Faladhi tend towards a generalist light unit, arming it with a pair of medium coilgun turrets. They are not expected to pose a major threat on their own due to shallow magazines and thin armor, but they perform best against light combat units."
Lena brought up an image of a serpentine, claw shaped craft. "This is the lightest Faladhi FTL combat starship, designation Kestrel. It masses one hundred million tons, and measures twelve hundred meters from stem to stern."
Remen frowned. "I thought initial estimates pegged Faladhi destroyers as almost identical in mass to our own destroyer type ships."
"We've revised their size down about fifteen percent now that we've got better data on their faster than light drive parameters. They also don't seem to have as much armor as our destroyers. We've noticed again that the enemy prefers generalist small craft even more than we do, with the Kestrel armed with an even mixture of medium coilgun, medium and heavy beam weapons, and four missile batteries. We expect that in engagements between light units, our forces should be evenly matched. Our initial assumption that the Faladhi engineer to slightly larger frames in general seems to have been flawed."
Lena paused. "We've still seen no indication that the enemy chooses to field ships in the one hundred fifty to two hundred million ton mass range that would correspond to our own cruisers. Should the enemy choose to engage us with even numbers of escorts and capital ships, our cruisers will match up very favorably to the Helot and Kestrel type units."
"Why would that be? There's advantages to combined arms strategies that surely must be evident to their strategists." Quar voiced his own thoughts. "They've shown the ability to understand our tactics and adapt to them, which means their planning must be alike enough to ours for the prospect of an interim hull to come up. So where are the cruisers?"
"I believe my team came up with an answer to that as well, Group Captain." Commander Lena said, and generated an image of a large wedge shaped ship with a cylindrical center hull, intricate traceries and swooping arches. "This is their light capital ship class, designated the Druna Skas. It measures twenty-two fifty-two meters, and masses two hundred eighty million tons. Slightly smaller than our own Knowledge-class battleships, the Druna Skas is markedly dissimilar from our craft.
"The Druna Skas's armor is inferior to our own. From the front it offers good protection, but from the top, bottom, sides, and especially rear it is quite inferior. Furthermore, it features only two thirds the heavy laser and coilgun armament of one of our battleships, though it has more than twice the medium laser complement. Based on these conclusions I can reclassify the Druna Skas type enemy starship from a battleship to a battlecruiser.
"In our recent engagements it was observed that the Druna Skasses focused their fire on our cruisers, where their comparable armor and superior firepower is advantageous at range."
Major Al'tar sighed. "Our cruisers beat their destroyers, their battlecruisers beat our cruisers?"
"It's ...rather situational, Major, but that's one possible outcome. The battlecruisers have a number of crushing weaknesses in close engagements, namely the spread out hull and medium-strength armor. To date we have found no explanation for the ship's peculiar shape."
"But that's insane." Captain Jesso said. "Who would purposefully engineer in vulnerable areas to their ships when they so clearly possessed the capability to do otherwise?"
"It seems to be a matter of aesthetics. The Faladhi deployment of these units is always either against units they dramatically outmass or in heavy laser range, where a unified hull is less important. To get a more specific answer we'll have to ask one of them in person."
Quar sighed. "Let's just be thankful there is a vulnerability to that class. To exploit it we would have to commit our escorts to close assault against theirs, which would place our own escorts well within the firing solution of their dreadnoughts."
Lena summoned three final schematics, of massive starships composed of tangles of enormous arms and panels, and long spindly hulls. "This brings me to the final element of the Faladhi order of battle. The heavy capital ships.
"The most common type is known by our enemies as the Reconquista-class. It masses five hundred and fifty million tons and measures three thousand two hundred meters, making it sixty percent larger than one of our battleships. It has three quarters the heavy laser firepower of one of our battleships, but has much larger turrets firing much shorter wavelengths giving them comparable force projection at range to one of our battleships. As it closes the range, the Reconquista sports twice the missile and coilgun firepower of one of ours, and fifty percent more medium laser emplacements. The forward armor of the Reconquista is at least as durable as the main impact plate on our battleshisp. They feature similarly heavy rear and side armor, though the arms and other structures do present exploitable weaknesses.
We got our closest look at this type, and noticed several heat surges as it engaged. The analysis and implication of these spikes is concurrent with throttling their primary engines up and down as the situation required."
"Do we have any solid numbers on their power output?" Commander Kell asked.
Lena shrugged. "Entirely the opposite. We saw them increase power three times, and two power jumps were when they were accelerating at what we thought was full power. We estimate that the Reconquista is overpowered, enough to devote perhaps twenty percent of its power output to refilling its jump batteries at any given time, as well as to run all of its weapon systems in a sustained firefight."
Kell blinked. "Wait. How much engine damage would we have to inflict on one of these dreadnoughts in order to reduce its maximum acceleration?"
Lena looked bleak. "In order to reduce their total available power to below the physiological limits based on acceleration, we'd have to strip off a third of their engines at a minimum, and they'd still have the ability to run their lasers or their coilguns. You'd have to knock out half their propulsion units to make their captains choose between thrusting or fighting."
Kell looked towards Quar. "Captain, what does this mean for our projections on single formation engagements?"
Quar's eyebrows raised. "Our battleship squadrons are pairs, they deploy their dreadnoughts in trios. Ship for ship they outmass us two to one while maintaining an equal number of heavy lasers. In close assault one of their dreadnought squadrons has roughly three times as much firepower. They have as much thrust power as a destroyer, and their FTL maneuverability may be much greater than our own. While their armor isn't as... logical as ours, it's certainly very thick and they appear to have more redundancy in the systems that would be priority targets during a firefight. Drives, power plants, short range weapons. Our ships can't remain a significant combat threat with a third of their engines offlined. We'd have to stop maneuvering and become bullseys, or cut weapons power to support only point defense, and become mostly harmless."
"Probable exchange rate?" Kell asked. Quar heard the unspoken question: how many of us have to die to kill one of them.
"In a straight fight, with no other variables, squadron vs squadron, we'd lose at least five battleships for each dreadnought. Minimum. That's assuming both sides simply thrusted at each other at maximum power. In a close assault, tactics is everything but..." Quar gestured to Lena's display, which was highlighting a simulated Faladhi dreadnought's coilgun batteries.
Jesso grinned. "We've got advantages of our own. You can't shoot an arm off of one of our battleships, and our armor is much more regularly distributed around the ship. Our impact plate should let us take a full barrage of fire from one of their dreadnoughts, too. What can you tell us of the other two dreadnought types, Commander?"
The officers around the table relaxed at Jesso's casual optimism. Quar found himself feeling relieved as well, simply to avoid dwelling on the raw strength of the enemy vessels. "Much less, I'm afraid." Lena summoned two images, one a thick hull with ten arms and the other a spindly skeleton. "As far as we can tell, the Jormungand-class is the closest thing the Faladhi have to a logistics vessel. We've identified these areas as cargo and manufacturing areas, as well as mining equipment."
"A six hundred /million/ ton armed logistics ship? That's impossible! How does the thing even dislocate without melting a hole right through the damned hull?" Remen exploded.
Quar grimaced, then gestured at Lena to continue. His executive officer looked visibly mortified. "Uh, well, sir... we think the fact that they're not generating a bubble but a skintight effect reduces a lot of the thermal stress. The Jormungand type isn't merely a logistics vessel, either... there's heavy plating on the nose and substantial armament. They've deployed this ship as a sort of command and artillery vessel, a bit like one of our cruiser variants."
"Only three times the size." Jesso noted drily.
Lena swallowed. "Yes sir. These ships are the most likely to have onboard metal and repair components stockpiles, so if we realistically wanted to effect repairs to our most damaged units we'd have to either capture or raid one of these ships."
"Any change on their projected armament, commander?" Captain Remen asked.
"No sir. Ten heavy beam projectors, twenty medium lasers along the flanks, and several dozen medium coilgun turrets. Like their battlecruiser, this ship seems armed to preferentially engage and destroy lighter craft... probably to discourage raids and flanking maneuvers. It also has the ability to offer very heavy fire support to the Reconquista types when they are in close assault, sir."
Quar suppressed a frown. "And the final type?"
"As far as we can tell, this third type is called the Asura class and is the ultimate expression of the battlecruiser design philosophy. Very limited armor, only getting really heavy in strategic locations, overwhelming heavy beam firepower and almost the entirety of the ship devoted to maintaining a high rate of thrust, accurate beam fire, and tactical dislocations. We've seen as many as three dislocation jumps in as little time as a minute, but that could be a function of a much larger jump battery than we use."
"The early reports indicated we'd sighted this last type operating as a huge scout or raider well ahead of their main fleet. This new group that attacked us seemed to use them as hit and run, strike units. Rapidly dislocate to a blind spot of one of our formations, and use point blank range accurate laser fire to disable or destroy key ships, then leave before we can react. Why the change?" asked Jesso.
Lena looked down. "Our best guess was... well, the Faladhi in this group are better commanders than the other group and are using their ships more effectively. We haven't seen an Asura stop to vent drive coolant or do an emergency jump battery powerup, so the logical conclusion is that we haven't seen the extent of their FTL mobility.
"We... think that the enemy's use of higher frequency lasers and monolithic reflectors as opposed to phased arrays led to their emphasis on ranged combat. There is no tactical or economical reason for the enemy to have three variants of their largest hull and only one specimin of the smaller types at this time, so we could very well learn of one hundred and two hundred fifty million ton assault ships in the near future. Given our newfound knowledge of the enemy's drives and power plants, we must conclude their maneuvering capability exceeds ours by a significant margin." Lena nodded to Quar, signalling the end of his briefing.
"Thank you, Commander Lena." Quar smiled as his executive officer scrambled for his seat.
Nobody spoke for several seconds. "How are we going to fight them, Capain?" asked Jesso.
"Their deployment and doctrine indicates they favor mobility and sheer firepower. Gaining local superiority then rapidly expanding that to gain global superiority. The most obvious way to offset their advantages is to be more aggressive and commit to close assaults earlier than them, but that runs the risk of stranding our battleships within the beam range of their battlecruisers and dreadnoughts due to their superior FTL maneuverability. The most effective way to beat them would be superior numbers denying them local superiority, but... that's not an option."
"Do you have a plan, Captain?" pressed Jesso. Quar flashed the younger man an irritated look before replying.
"Not yet. I want to continue repairs until we've exhausted our remaining supply of armor patches and components before attempting a series of reconnaissance missions back insystem. Our sensors recorded at least ten dreadnoughts and eight battlecruisers in the initial assault, along with twenty two destroyers and sixty parasites. There were a hell of a lot more of our habitats and installations in the system than they have ships, so we have a window to catch several of their capital ships away from their main fleet and do some damage. Maybe we'll get lucky and bag one of their logistics dreadnoughts, but killing a few assault dreadnoughts or battlecruisers would go a long way towards making our job easier once we get reinforcements and have to retake the inner system."
"Do you think they'll have split up?"
Quar shrugged. "It could go one of three ways. They're using their parasites and destroyers to assume control of the orbital installations, leaving their capital ships near the planet. I doubt they're doing that, simply because they don't need all of their capital ships circling the planet to enforce authority. The maximum they'd need is six parasites to provide orbital fire support as their ground troops need, and the planet isn't a particularly important strategic objective. More than half of the system's industrial capacity was located offplanet.
The second option would be to evenly divide up their forces. A single dreadnought with a pair of destroyers and six sublight parasites would be easily capable of forcing the surrender of any of our asteroid forts, as well as carry enough troops to garrison a habitat. This isn't a terrible plan either if they're confident we've left and have reinforcements on the way. I'm not counting on it though; the enemy's played it pretty cautiously up until now."
Commander Lena spoke up. "They did only decide to make an offensive aimed at gaining territory now, as opposed to at the start of their incursion some six months back. That suggests a commander very interested in intelligence and reconnaissance."
"If they're so smart, then why hit this system? It's not got major shipyards or munitions factories. Why here?" Remen asked to Lena.
Quar raised his hand, but it took Captain Jesso to bring the room in order: "Captain, I believe those questions would invite more tenuous speculation than is necessary at this time. I also think that Group Captain Quar was getting ready to tell us the third possible deployment of enemy forces?"
"Thank you, Captain." Quar said. "If I were the enemy commander, I would leave half of my light units at the planet and roll the entire fleet through the system. Any repairs or rearmaments could be completed at maximum efficiency with the logistics ships on hand to sieze materials and fabricate components on the spot. Furthermore it keeps their force constantly moving, making them less vulnerable to any counterattack. Finally, the light units around the planet would be more than sufficient to utterly cow the population and perform orbital transport duties effectively, as well as run courier duties coordinating the main body of their fleet with their escorts."
Quar sighed. "It's... sort of what I'm afraid of, to be honest. In that situation the best we can hope to accomplish without reinforcements is picking off their escorts. If the enemy commander keeps his formation together we'd be crushed in a straight fight. They could easily divide their dreadnoughts into any number of subformations and harry us with repeated dislocation assaults until we ran out of jump battery and coolant, then swarm us at point blank range while their battlecruisers and support dreadnoughts picked us apart. They wouldn't even need their escorts to slaughter us."
"That's a rather defeatist attitude, isn't it Captain?" Jesso asked.
Quar shrugged again. "Well, on the bright side it means I get to be pleasantly surprised by any more positive outcome. Which is nice. I can say we have opportunities to inflict significant damage on the enemy regardless of their deployment. They can't know we're out here, so they can't rule out the possibility that we've just kept running."
Commander Kell looked away for a second. "They also can't rule out our remaining insystem either, sir."
"Good point, commander. In that case they'll have to defend all of their operations against assault at all times, meaning they'll have to be much less efficient about fully conquering this system. Do your engineering teams have any local surveys and prospecting reports for the asteroid belts?" Quar asked.
Kell sputtered a false start, then said, "My engineers report they've found several claimed but undeveloped metal-rich asteroids in the inner belt that might be likely places to either recover repair materials or find an enemy logistics craft. I'll have them distribute both the surveys and their analyses, Captain."
Quar nodded. "All right. I have no further orders or briefings prepared for you. Please return to your ships; I will provide a plan of action in the morning. Thank you all."
