Comrades in Arms
Chapter 14: Midship
Outer borders of Belgrade, PAC-EU control zone border
February 2nd, 2140
One would never think it to look at him outside of a combat zone, but Major General Hoten Sousuke was damned energetic when it came to bridge command.
Imperial Lance had just arrived at the outermost sectors of Belgrade, in a position that entered into EU controlled territory. The Europeans quite obviously had not taken kindly to the arrival of a Command-class Titan and its associated fleet of support vessels into their territory, and after verbally warning Sousuke's fleet to leave or be fired upon (a threat which Sousuke had responded to with some choice language) sent two Superior-class Titans to intercept the Lance.
The Superior-class Titans had arrived half an hour ago. Sousuke had given the order to fire as soon as they had come into visual range. The two Titans had weathered the missiles and railgun shots to close to boarding distance, where the Assault Pods launched from one could quite easily reach the other.
That no Assault Pods had yet been launched was due to the fact that all three Titans still had significant percentages of shield power remaining.
"Navigations! Bring us about so our portside faces them! Weaponry, prepare the portside railguns for sustained volleys! Fire on my mark and only stop firing on my mark!" Sousuke barked.
The relevant personnel responded "Aye, Commander!" and executed the necessary commands to prepare the Titan's generators, weapons and engines for the order. Imperial Lance began to move forwards very slightly and turn right sharply.
"Defences, status on our shields!" Sousuke snapped.
"Seventy-two percent capacity, Commander. Draining zero point five per each of their missile impacts!" reported Kirov, manning the Defences consoles.
"Tolerable. Energy, reroute quarter power each from shields to railgun charge and engines. Weaponry, acquire firing solutions to fire portside guns at the closer of their ships!"
The addressed crewmen responded affirmative and furiously flipped switches and tapped consoles. The weaponry not controlled directly by Sousuke –namely the top anti-aircraft turrets and the bottom high-explosive cannons – fired continuously to deter incoming troop transports and gunships, their fire directed by individual Engineer personnel manning weapon consoles.
The officer at Navigation barked a report. "In position, Commander! Portside is presented to the enemy!"
Sousuke was not able to acknowledge that before the Weaponry officer barked "All portside railguns hot! Firing solutions acquired! Ready on your mark, Commander!"
"Roger that! Fire port guns according to solution! Stagger shots and keep continuous fire on them until their shields break!" Sousuke ordered.
"Firing!" was all that the Weaponry officer said before flipping a single switch. The Titan shuddered to starboard rhythmically as the railguns steadily fired rounds at the closer of the two incoming Titans.
"Scramble gunship bays one through five! Destroy their anti-aircraft turrets!" Sousuke ordered over the COM.
Inside the gunship bays, pilots and gunners sprang to life, jumping into cockpits and activating engines. From Imperial Lance's aft end, ten gunships took to the skies and soared towards the EU Titans, weapons hot.
The EU retaliated with a swarm of missiles fired from the further of their two Titans. The light, nimble anti-aircraft ordnance made contact with the squadron of gunships after about five seconds of flight. Five of the Doragons activated their defence systems, the missiles harmlessly detonating against the bubble of electromagnetic shielding surrounding them. Three more were able to sharply bank their craft and break the missiles' lock-on. The last two were not as fortunate, and their craft were hit and went down in flames and hot metal. Twin parachutes appeared from the cockpit of one of them. The other simply hit the ground and exploded.
Sousuke opened a channel directly to the lead gunship pilot and barked an order. "Divert their fire away from us! Neutralize those missiles!"
The gunship pilot affirmed, and Sousuke demanded a status report from the bridge crew.
"Railguns down to fifteen percent charge, Commander. We can sustain fire for another three shots approximately," reported the Weapons officer.
"Shields at fifty-nine percent integrity. Recharging at rate one point five percent per second," Kirov called from the Defences console.
"All generators at maximum output. Current power supply is fifty to weapons, twenty-five to shields and remaining to engines," the Energy officer reported.
Sousuke grimaced. It was slightly less than he would have hoped for, but he would have to make do.
"Cease railguns. Divert power forty-forty to Weapons and shield recharge, twenty engines. Fire a salvo from missile pod one, target the closer of their ships," Sousuke commanded.
"Sir!" acknowledged the Weaponry officer, frantically operating his console. The Titan shuddered as 64 miniature missiles streaked out of individual launch tubes and screamed towards the closest EU Titan. The successive impacts of 64 tandem explosive/EMP missiles, specifically designed for anti-air applications, along with the constant pressure of the previous railgun salvo, was too much for the Titan to bear. Its shields flickered and died.
Sousuke pounced like a tiger. "Missile salvo! Target their engines and lift pods! Charge railguns for simultaneous fire!"
Imperial Lance shuddered yet again as another salvo of missiles – only 32 this time round, blasted from its top deck launch pods and wove complex patterns in the air towards the crippled enemy Titan. With each missile impact, the majority of which were located on the Titan's underbelly or aft engines, the airborne fortress shook, the EMP and explosive playing havoc with its propulsion balance.
A distressed report came over the COM. "Commander, this is gunship team! We are taking heavy losses, repeat heavy losses to enemy gunships!"
"Fall back to range of our point defences!" Sousuke ordered. The gunship pilot sent a non-verbal acknowledgement, and on his viewscreen Sousuke saw the remaining five gunships concede airspace and slowly fall back to the Lance. Despite their dire situation, the gunship pilots did not turn tail completely, instead affecting a fighting retreat while attempting to shoot down the seven Talons which harassed them.
"Status railguns!" Sousuke shouted.
"At 68 percent charge, Commander! Twenty seconds to ready!"
"Divert power from propulsion and shields to charge, have railguns ready in ten seconds!"
The officer at the Energy console did a double take. "Inadvisable, sir. Our shields have suffered severe damage. We would not be able to recharge them quickly enough."
Sousuke hesitated, and then said, with firm resolve, "Do it." The Energy officer hesitated, and then nodded, keying in the relevant commands which would divert the generators' output power 80 percent to the railguns, leaving their shields with only 20 percent of the power with which to recharge.
The further of the two EU Titans began to fire off volleys of railgun fire from its starboard railguns. Each shot cut a nerve-wracking three percent off the Lance's shields, while it regained shield charge at the agonizing rate of 0.8 percent per second.
"Railguns are hot, sir!" reported Weaponry.
"Firing solution! Fire all guns simultaneously at their propulsion pods! Launch half missile pod to strike simultaneously!" Sousuke ordered.
Weaponry frantically keyed his console to calculate the firing times and trajectories needed for such a strike. Three seconds later, missiles fired from the top deck and spiralled towards the EU Titan. As they neared the last fifty metres of flight, the Lance lurched violently to the right as all its portside railguns fired at once. The missile explosions peppered the underbelly of the Titan while the surgically precise half-metre long steel/tungsten railgun rounds slammed into its propulsion pods at several times the speed of sound.
The EU Titan rocked from the impacts – and then plunged thirty feet downwards as two of its propulsion drives failed completely.
Sousuke was about to call for a second salvo on it, when the Engineers manning the ground defence cannons swung their aim towards the low target and fired. Explosions erupted across the Titan's top deck, and the combined stress of all the damage was too much. Slowly but inevitably, it fell further and further down before crashing onto the snowy plain below.
The bridge crew cheered as the EU Titan threw up a massive cloud of powder snow and water. Sousuke grabbed a microphone and ordered "Combat teams Alpha through Delta, drop to surface and secure the crash site."
Assault pods shot out of Imperial Lance's flanks and vectored themselves towards the hulk of the fallen Titan.
Sousuke didn't have time to follow their progress when Kirov frantically shouted "General! Incoming missiles!"
Sousuke jerked back in shock. His shields were already low, and this salvo might just break them-
"All power to shields, now!"
The order came a fraction of a second too late.
A massive, extended BOOM resounded through the Imperial Lance.
A klaxon blared, and in case its meaning was lost on anybody, a synthesized Russian voice spoke in an eerily emotionless tone:
Warning, Titan shields destroyed.
Sousuke grabbed a microphone and barked an order into it. His voice echoed throughout every sector of the Titan, heard by everybody on it.
"Combat teams, stand by to repel boarders."
The entirety of Imperial Lance became a flurry of activity. Soldiers who had a second ago been enjoying some free time in the mess hall or dormitory were now clipping on combat gear and slapping fresh magazines into rifles. A full squad of Recon personnel were busy sapping the corridors with APM mines, while Assault and Support troops threw down Ammo and Medical hubs, IPS shields and Enforcer turrets to create field-expedient pillboxes. Accipiter drones beeped complex sequences of electronic noises as squad leaders calibrated their targeting systems. In the space of five minutes, every defensible position in the Titan was occupied, guns trained on every entrance, and every square inch of space covered by at least two pairs of eyes.
----
It had taken four of those five minutes for Sousuke to come up with a dangerous but potentially lifesaving tactic.
"Energy, reroute power 60 percent to shield recharge capacitors. Do not recharge the shields themselves. Maintain 20 percent power to weaponry and engines each. Stand by to dump capacitor charge into shields only on my mark."
The Energy officer looked bemused, but he had served Sousuke for the better part of three years. He knew to trust his Commander's insight in times of crisis. So he shook off any feelings of doubt he may have had, performed the relevant operations on his console, and replied "Aye, Commander. Shields recharging at rate three percent per second."
"Sir, incoming boarding craft! Visual on three Shepherd dropships!" Kirov reported from the Defence console.
"Let them come. Order the point defence crew to open fire but allow them to approach." Sousuke replied. He was not calm, but simply projecting the illusion. Inside he had entered the cold state of unthinking calculation, where combat tactics formed themselves inside his mind without conscious thought. In his mind, the next few minutes had already played out – exactly as they were about to in real life.
The three Shepherd dropships approached steadily, their forward chainguns chipping away at the Lance's upper turrets. Bullets were ineffective, however, against the turrets' hardened armour. The two Talon escort gunships were more successful with rockets, but they were quickly cut out of the sky before they could do any serious damage.
"Boarding craft at one hundred metres and closing," reported Kirov.
"Steady," was all Sousuke said.
The dropships closed in, coming in low for an actual landing on the Lance's exposed rear deck.
Sixty metres…
"Prepare to charge shields," Sousuke said.
Forty…
"Hold…"
Twenty…
A bead of sweat ran down the Energy officer's cheek.
Ten…
"SHIELDS, NOW!"
The Energy officer all but slammed his fist down on the SHIELD CHARGE button on his console. The shield capacitors, which had slowly been absorbing energy from the reactor core charge, now dumped the entirety of their energy capacity into the shield generators themselves. What this amounted to was a jump in the shield integrity from zero to forty percent.
Enemy materiel didn't pass shields.
Two of the three Shepherd dropships slammed into the newly charged shield at full speed and all but vaporized. The third was able to apply its airbrakes, slow, and then back off – for all of five seconds, before a barrage of five missiles from the Lance transformed it into a flaming wreck which plummeted to the ground.
The impact from the two dropships had reduced Imperial Lance's shields to twenty, and Sousuke ordered a half power recharge. The integrity percentage crept upwards at a respectable rate.
The remaining EU Titan didn't seem to want to continue the fight any longer, and it slowly turned tail and fled – all the while pursued by railgun rounds and missiles from Sousuke's zealous Weapons officer. By the time it had cleared their maximum firing range, its shields had been depleted and it was limping on only four of its six propulsion drives.
The Imperial Lance bridge crew leaned back in their seats and heaved a collective sigh of relief. Breathless cheers were thrown out by some of the officers, but for the most part everybody just tried to catch their breath.
Sousuke activated the microphone and broadcast through the entire Titan. "Combat teams at ease. Boarders repelled. Enemy units turning tail."
"That," Kirov breathed, as soon as he was able to speak, "was possibly the most daring tactic I have ever seen, Commander."
"Something you might have come up with, no doubt," Sousuke replied. Kirov only chuckled in reply, and went back to operating his console.
The Major General didn't have time to relax back in his command chair before an incoming hail came over the COM.
"Command-class Titan flying Pan-Asian Coalition flags, this is Coalition Army Third Air Patrol under Sector Commander Fedor Spetzir. Transmit handshake protocols, over."
Sousuke verbally confirmed the request before sending the encrypted handshake protocols over the transmission link – a sort of greeting card which was used to confirm the friendly status of unknown craft.
"Status confirmed. Please state your crew and intent."
Sousuke deliberated on what to reply with for a second.
He activated his microphone and answered the gunship pilot.
"This is Major General Hoten Sousuke, Commander of the Coalition Army Command-class Titan Imperial Lance. We fought at and took Minsk, and we are your reinforcements."
There was stunned silence on the other end of the COM for a few seconds, before the gunship pilot shakily replied "Stand by for COM transfer, sir."
Three seconds later, Commissar Fedor Spetzir's face appeared on Sousuke's view screen.
"Major General Sousuke. Damn good to have you here, sir. I don't suppose you want me to bother with an escort squadron?"
"That won't be necessary, Sector Commander," Sousuke replied.
"I'm transmitting co-ordinates and a flightpath through our controlled zones which you can follow to COMCENTRAL. That is, unless you'd like to just bulldoze through enemy territory…"
"I dare say my crew need a rest after the long journey, Sector Commander. Ready to receive flightpath co-ordinates.
"Sending now," Spetzir replied "For the record, Major General, welcome to Belgrade."