Disclaimer: I do not own Infinite Stratos.
This is only my second FF. Go easy on me. Other than that, review please!
I try to be as close to Canon as possible, but a breaking of setting might still occur.
Chapter 1: Operation Starfall
"Operation Starfall is a go. I repeat, Operation Starfall is a go. Weapons hot, engage enemy targets."
I always am curious as to whether or not the so-called Infinite Stratos is undefeatable via conventional means, at least in a cost effective basis. Ever since the first IS completely wiped out a conventional task force, the IS has been heralded as being the finest of warfare technologies.
Too bad I'm going to destroy that myth here and now.
"Enemy units detected. 4 IS in total. Estimated total investment costs, 32 billion dollars. ETA, 3 minutes for maximum engagement range," reports Callista, my younger sister and chief of staff for this operation.
Showtime.
"All Artemis Combat Drones engage at speeds of Mach 5 and engage from 4 Km distances only. Maintain standoff distance, decelerate to stall speed to take aim when required and disengage at Mach 5 when necessary. Engage enemy units with hybrid cannons," I command.
The computer screen in front of me shows the diagram of an Artemis Combat Drone, highlighting its hybrid cannons. Artemis Combat Drones are human controlled drones I conceptualized specifically to engage and destroy IS units with only a fraction of the cost. A single IS unit can cost 6-8 billion dollars, a single Artemis Combat Drone costs only 500 million dollars. If the four deployed combat drones can defeat the four enemy IS, I will have proven that the IS aren't so invincible after all.
An IS unit's maximum speed is at Mach 2, as exemplified by the data on the [Gospel] IS used by the US. Meanwhile, the cruising speed of my ACDs is at Mach 5, with a maximum of Mach 12. The IS unit's maximum effective engagement range, as exemplified by the data on UK's [Blue Tears] is at 3Km. My ACDs can effectively engage the enemy at 4Km distance.
Of course, my ACDs aren't superior in all marks. For one thing, a single shot from an IS can completely destroy an ACD. But as long as I use superior speed and range to keep out of an IS's combat range, I can attack with impunity. Also, my ACDs do not have the subspace containers an IS unit is equipped with. But this is non-issue. IS units are also more agile than my ACDs, but as long as I dictate how the battle is fought, their agility is irrelevant.
At least, that's the theory. Now let's put that theory to the test, shall we.
"Our drones are engaging enemy targets, sir. All ACDs have armed their Hybrid Cannons," Callista reports.
"Perfect. Focus fire on the IS number one, then move on to IS number two and so forth. Maintain stall speed until the ISes enter 3km range. "
"Yes sir. All drone pilots, fire at IS number one."
"Oh, and give me a visual."
"Yes sir. Visual streaming in real time at the main screen."
A large computer screen shows me the video view of all of the ACDs. From the four views, I see them firing towards the first IS, highlighted with a red cross on the computer screen."
My 4 ACDs engage the group of ISes. Entering within 4Km range, my ACDs decelerate to stall speed and open fire. The first IS, taking hits from bullets traveling at Mach 16 at 1200 RPM from 4 different sources quickly depleted its shields and is forced to deploy its Absolute Defense, all the while falling into the ocean bellow. One down, three more to go.
The other 3 IS units notices the attack. They all promptly attempt to close in and engage my ACDs.
"All ACDs, disengage. Afterburners are authorized," I say. The enemy IS units are rapidly closing the distance, and one of them seem to be moving at mach two. If I continue to press on, my ACDs will quickly enter the combat ranges of the enemy IS.
"The enemy has given up pursuit, sir."
Obviously they have. What kind of idiot will try to pursue, anyway? The speed differences are just too great.
"Excellent. All ACDs, reengage."
"Yes sir. All ACDs, engage IS number two."
Reentering the battlespace at Mach 5 and immediately decelerating to stall speeds at 4Km distance, my ACDs open fire. The remaining three IS units seem surprised that they are suddenly attacked again. They must have thought that they have scared their attackers off. Unfortunately for them, that is not the case. I simply intend to destroy them all via hit and runs.
The second IS unit is forced to activate its absolute defense and promptly plummets into the ocean. The third and fourth IS units, probably finally understanding what is going on, promptly turns tail and attempts to retreat.
Not gonna happen.
"All ACDs, move at Mach 2 speeds and engage at 4Km distance. Tail them and destroy them," I say.
"Yes sir. All ACD pilots, move at Mach 2 and engage at 4Km distance. Do not let them escape. Focus fire on IS number three."
The third IS unit tries to use its superior agility to shake off the whittling fire from my 4 ACDs. Unfortunately, for it, dodging 1200 bullets per minute just isn't possible. From the data I have read of IS performance, they can easily dodge anything slower than them, as well as anything with a low rate of fire. The obvious solution is to use fast, rapid firing weaponry. I am impressed, though, the third IS unit is not going down as fast as what I expected.
But it went down nonetheless. One more to go.
The fourth IS unit suddenly turned around and boosted. From what I see, it seems to be an ignition boost. A commendable tactic, but with the maximum distance of ignition boost being half a kilometer, such a tactic is futile resistance at best.
"All ACDs, disengage. Activate afterburners," I command.
A sound of an explosion is heard over one of my drone pilot's control panel. It seems that one of my ACDs have been destroyed. From the main screen, I see the last IS unit still desperately trying to attack my remaining drones. The Afterburners boost the speed of my ACDs to Mach 12, escaping the furious beam barrages of the last IS unit.
"Sir, we have lost ACD number 2."
"Not a problem. All ACDs, reengage at 6Km distance and immediately disengage at 4Km distance. Maintain speeds of 350," I say. 6Km is beyond the effective range of my ACDs, but I'd rather not lose any more of my ACDs.
"Yes sir. All ACD pilots, reengage at 6Km distance, maintain speeds of 350 while engaging."
The fourth IS is much more resilient than the previous three, and much faster too. Not as fast as my ACDs, though. The whittling fire from my remaining 3 ACDs smash onto the last IS unit.
"All ACD pilots, disengage," Callista immediately says. The enemy IS unit is rapidly approaching the 4Km benchmark.
Apparently, I need to do another wave of attack to bring down this IS. It will not matter, though.
"All ACDs, reengage at 6Km distance," I say. No need to retreat this time.
The fourth IS activates its absolute defense and plummets into the ocean.
"Victoria est, erat, et semper erit nostra," mutters Callista with satisfaction. This is followed by everyone cheering in the control room.
"After action report for your review, commander," reports the smiling Callista.
"Thank you, Chief of Staff," I reply, also smiling.
"Now that we won, can we get that triple ice cream sundae you promised?" Callista asks me, all the previous formality forgotten. I smile at her.
"Sure. Let's drop of at Vienna. I heard they have a lot of great desserts there."
Natasha Fairs had better days. They all don't involve getting shot down by a non-IS conventional force and desperately trying to stay afloat in the middle of an ocean while waiting for the rescue. They don't involve having her IS damaged to the point of being effectively destroyed either. Of course, at the very least, she isn't hurt. The absolute defense managed to protect her from any damage while falling.
"Well, at least I managed to destroy one of those airplanes," Natasha mutters, trying to console herself of her humiliating loss. Some of the blame could be shifted to faulty intelligence, but for an IS to be defeated by a mere jet is simply humiliating.
This morning, she got a mission to intercept and destroy aerial objects approaching the US Hawaii army base she was stationed in. Intel states that these objects are most likely to be recon drones, mostly because only an idiot would deploy a conventional force against an IS, not to mention four ISes.
"The higher-ups are going to have my ass on this…" she mutters. Ever since the Silver Gospel incident, the higher-ups have put her on constant watch to review on whether or not she is worthy enough to keep as a national representative. With this incident, she is likely to have her privileges as a national representative revoked. As far as she knows, this is the first incident where a conventional force of equal number successfully defeated an IS force.
"Forget the higher-ups, I'm going to be a laughing stock of the IS community…" she once again mutters. She thinks her entire reputation is at stake. Although since the US army base is a secret, there is no such risk, it is understandable that she is worried.
The sound of helicopter blades pulls her away from her thoughts. From the helicopter windows, she can see her three teammates already rescued with blankets draped over their soldiers. She was the last to be shot down, and thus the last of be rescued. The helicopter's door opens and an officer inside throws out a rope for her.
Combat Report: Operation Starfall
Combat Summary:
*8:07- ACDs fly within 20Km of enemy force. ACDs move towards enemy formation at Mach 5.
*11:09- ACDs fly within 8Km of enemy force.
*11:09:3- ACDs fly within 4km of enemy force at Mach 5. ACDs immediately decelerate to 220Km/h (Stall Speed).
*11:09:5- ACDs open fire. Target 01 downed. Enemy forces closing in at Mach 2 (Max).
*11:09:8- Enemy force within 2Km of ACDs. ACDs retreat at Mach 5.
*11:15- Enemy force give up pursuit.
*11:15:4- ACDs fly at Mach 5 and move within 4Km range of enemy force. ACDs decelerate to 220Km/h.
*11:15:6- ACDs open fire. Target 02 downed. Enemy forces retreating.
*11:15:7- ACDs pursue at Mach 2 while maintaining 4Km distance.
*11:15:39- Target 03 downed.
*11:15:40- Target 04 changes course. ACD unit 02 comes under fire. ACD unit 02 downed.
*11:15:41- Afterburners activated. Disengaging enemy at Mach 12.
*11:15:45- Moving towards enemy force at Mach 5.
*11:16- Reengaging enemy force at 6Km distance. Maintaining speeds of 350Km/h.
*11:16:5- Disengaging at Mach 5.
*11:16:10- Reengaging enemy force at 6Km distance. Maintaining speeds of 350Km/h.
*11:16:15- Target 04 downed.
Damage Report:
Caduceus Engagement Force: 4 Artemis Combat Drones
Total Unit Losses:
1 Artemis Combat Drone- $500 000 000
Total Munitions Expended:
76 847 30mm Heat Resistant Tungsten Bullets- $11 527 050
Total Expenses: $511 527 050
Enemy Forces: 3 2nd Gen IS [Bronze Spear], 1 3rd Gen IS [Silver Gospel]
Total Unit Losses:
3 2nd Gen IS [Bronze Spear]- $18 000 000 000
1 3rd Gen IS [Silver Gospel]- $12 000 000 000
Total Munitions Expended: Unknown
Total Expenses: $30 000 000 000
Total Investment: $2 500 000 000
Total Expenses: $511 527 050
Total Damage: $30 000 000 000
Loss-Kill ratio (Units): 1-4
Loss-Kill ratio (Expenses): 1-58.648
Performance Rating: AAA
Reading the After Action Report summary, I feel a surge of pride within me. I was right, IS units, despite conventional wisdom and popular opinion, are actually quite vulnerable to certain kinds of attacks and tactics.
My suspicions on the assertions that 'only IS can beat IS' began when I started to collect memos and reports of the 'White Knight Incident'. During my investigation, I found out the victory of the [White Knight] was not as outstanding as advertized. Most of the victory can be credited to bad decisions and bad intelligence gathering.
What really happened is in a lot of ways, hilarious. The missiles, instead of engaging multiple targets on Japan, clustered together and engaged only a single target. It is no surprise that the missiles got intercepted. They had no space of to do erratic evasive maneuvers. Indeed, the missiles seem to not do any evasive maneuvers at all. Any Point Defense system can intercept those missiles. Then, a Japanese informant informs the CIA of what just happened. Unfortunately, due to cultural misunderstandings, the Japanese informant's description, instead of sounding like 'armored, flying exoskeleton', sounded like 'huge, anime-esque robot'. The CIA promptly relayed the 'intel' to the Pentagon, who relayed it to Russia and China. The US deployed 3 Carrier Strike groups, while Russia and China deployed one. This is where the stupidity started. Thinking the target was a kilometer or more high, all these Strike Groups were packed with heavy bombing ordnance. Usually, the US would pack a greater variety of weapons just in case, but the military spending cuts instituted by the Obama Administration and the Democrat Super Majority made such an arrangement too costly if needed to be rapidly done. Thus, all of the 3 US Strike Groups were only equipped with ordnance to destroy buildings and such. When the jets were launched, the huge thermal signature of the IS seemingly confirms the 'huge mecha' misinformation. When the jets engaged, they did not carry any serious air to air ordnance, just a few sidewinder missiles. They were mainly equipped with precision bombs. They were forced to have a dog fighting match against the more agile IS with Vulcan Cannons, something F-22 Raptors and other Jets are not designed for. Naturally, they lost. Without the jets, the aircraft carriers were sitting ducks, and their escorts carried tomahawk missiles for huge targets but no ordnance at all for small agile targets. The rest is, well, the history. In other words, the [White Knight] won because of bad intelligence and bad command, not because of the ability of the IS frame itself. After the battle, the Pentagon submitted a report of what went wrong, but this was suppressed by the Obama administration who wanted to develop IS frames instead of conventional weapons because focusing on IS development would be cheaper, thus allowing them to further cut military spending. Political pressure made the Pentagon relent, and the Democratic agenda of cutting military spending succeeded. When the US announced to the world of the Alaska Treaty and their intention to develop IS frames instead of conventional forces, the rest of the world followed suit in a domino effect.
In my world, such politicking and military incompetence would not happen.
Oh yeah, me and my sister comes from an alternate dimension, an alternate Earth, so to speak. Looking at the history books at this place, it seems that the major diversion points of our respective histories came from the Battle of Kursk and the Battle of the Bulge, both which are won by Germany and which in my world extended WW2 for about two years, although in the end Germany still lost. The Cold War lasted nearly twice as long, too, and WW3 has already happened.
But enough of that, I need to finish my sundae.
"Big brother, what are we going to do next?" Asks Callista.
"I'm not sure, actually. We will need to wait until the share holders make the decision to make a branch in this world. Until then, we can do whatever we want," I answer her.
"Aaaah… The guys at Caduceus Equity are taking their time. This is like a vacation, really,"
"Well, good for us, then. Wanna get another sundae?"
"No thanks. I'm stuffed."
"Alright, just let me finish mine and let's get back to the hotel."
While eating my sundae, I notice the headlines of the breaking news on a TV screen. 4 United States IS defeated by 8 rogue IS terrorists. Yeah right. But this is good for me, I suppose. Publicity isn't something I am keen of right now.
Notes:
General:
The explanation of how a single IS can defeat an army above does not contradict Cannon. If it does, please remind me and I'll revise and change the explanation. If it seems that I am nerfing the ISes too much for the sake of realism, remind me via reviews.
The name of the main character of this story has not been decided yet. That is why I did not mention his name in this chapter, not because I want to keep his identity mysterious. Naming suggestions are welcome.
The main character of this story and his sister, Callista, is part of a corporation called Caduceus Corp. Their structure is roughly the following:
Owner: Caduceus Equity Group.
Main Investment: Caduceus Corp.
Subsidiaries:
Caduceus Enforcement and Local Logistics (CELL)- Corporate Security, Enforcement and Combat Testing Wing. Main Character and Callista is part of this.
Caduceus Armament Research and Experimentation (CARE)- Military Research Wing.
Caduceus Corporate Capital Management and Finance (M&G)- Financing Wing.
Caduceus Corporate Production and Logistics (P&L)- Production Wing.
Caduceus Corporate Exotic Research and Development (R&D)- 'Exotic' Research Wing.
More to come.
Units and Technologies: This notes section is devoted specifically to the technologies mentioned that might not exist in cannon. Usually, these technologies are feasible, if not actually under development.
Artemis Combat Drone: Newest combat drone developed by CARE. Designed specifically to engage and destroy IS units.
Notable equipment:
Variable Jet Engine: Developed by R&D. This engine is designed to be able to adjust its shape and transition to a Turbojet, a Ramjet or a Scramjet, allowing the engine to work at maximum efficiency in all speeds. Specifically, from Mach 2 to 3, a Turbojet system is used. From Mach 3-6, a Ramjet system is used. From mach 7-12, a Scramjet system is used. An ACD has one VJE.
PDE Thrusters: Developed by an outside company. Personal Detonation Engines are efficient at all speeds, but cannot achieve extreme speeds such as Mach 7 and above. An ACD has two PDE Thrusters for agile maneuvers.
Hybrid Cannon: A Coilgun/Ram Accelerator Hybrid. In simple terms, a projectile the shape of a ramjet center body is set inside a coilgun barrel. The barrel is filled with a pre-mixed gaseous fuel-air mixture beforehand. When the projectile is accelerated by the coilgun into supersonic speeds, compression is caused between the projectile and the barrel's walls. As the ram accelerator projectile compresses the fuel-air mixture, it is ignited and the combustion is stabilized at the base of the projectile. The Coilgun by itself can accelerate the projectile until Mach 8, and using conventional explosives the Ram accelerator by itself can accelerate the projectile until Mach 8. The combined result of the hybrid accelerates the projectile to between Mach 12 to Mach 20. The advantage of this system over a railgun design is its greater efficiency and less barrel wear, since the projectile doesn't touch the barrels of the gun itself.
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