Notes: We are starting the "battles and more parties'' section of the arc. This story is my longest on Ao3 so far, with the release of the last chapter.
Remember how some authors can't seem to do math well? I didn't run the range numbers for the missile engagement later in the chapter (though I did do some missile numbers math that should be correct). I hope you are okay with that, as otherwise, every space battle chapter would take me even longer to write.
A few days later…
Shannon is sipping on some coffee at Oakhampton Palace, Diana on her lap, and reading the news, when an aide approaches her, and taps her shoulder to get her attention, as she'd been known to get hyperfocused on tasks for a long time, "Milady, Tracking reports 400 plus impeller signatures, with more still coming over the wall, just inside 1 light-minute from the hyper limit. They haven't responded to our challenges, and are presumed as hostile SLN units, complete with drive signatures." The "12 minute limit", is the line, where, 12 minutes beyond the hyper limit, warships have to identify themselves and request the right to pass through a system's space. These SLN ships have more than broken that rule, but the SLN's never bothered to follow it to begin with, thinks Shannon.
"Can someone give me an ops force breakdown?" Shannon asks, as she closes the news on her datapad and puts her coffee down. She knows this moment could have come at any time, and is almost relieved to have them come, as she knows that, with the reinforcements, that Elvana can take them, or at least hold out, assuming they didn't jump decades of research in months, compared to Countess Gold Peak's defeat of over 70 SLN SDs at Spindle, which she feels very good that they haven't. At least assuming they didn't decide to throw 400 SDs at Elvana. And even then, the SDF, RHN and RMN won't surrender, we'll just, worst case, fall back to picket positions and send for Apollo-armed reinforcements, she thinks.
The red haired SDF Commander, Countess Astrid Hyland of Vore, who's her aide this shift, looks at her datapad and shakes her head, "Tracking's working on it, milady.", before seeing something that made her change her mind and say, "Oh, wait, they estimate roughly 200 SDs, mixed Scientists and Vegas, and 200– no, 220, and counting on the screening units, milady." The Book calls for 3-4 of the screen to 1 waller, so, we're likely going to be looking at 600-800 of the screen, and we've drilled for up to 250 Vegas, with a very heavy screen, Shannon thinks.
"Inform Victory that I'll be using her as my flagship, like we've practiced, as she's got a better command setup than Sovereign of Space, and I didn't want to split up Admiral Bellefeuille's squadron she 'borrowed' from Capital Fleet, given how well it's trained together." Shannon says, before getting up and carefully running (without knocking anyone over, like she'd done a time or few as a kid, when she wasn't watching where she was going) to the VIP-outfitted pinnace that was on one of the private spaceport pads at Oakhampton, Diana at her side. She had arranged to leave their skinsuits on the pinnace, so they'd be available when they needed them.
HMS Victory was one of the very few Medusa-B SD(P)s that had been built before Oyster Bay had knocked out so much of Manticore and Grayson's infrastructure. This RHNS Sovereign of Space was the second of the name, as the name had been placed on the RHN's version of the List of Honor, with the name retaining its battle honors and always being kept in commission, after it was destroyed as Admiral Giscard's flagship at Lovat. When she'd heard that name, it reminded her of many memories from all those precious months when the original RHNS Sovereign of Space was her flagship, as she'd worked up all those SD(P)s and CLACs for Thunderbolt. When she'd briefly toured the new Sovereign of Space, it had made her have flashbacks of all those memories. The saddest memory from the original Sovereign of Space, for her, was always having to give her up, despite what had happened to Admiral Giscard at Lovat later, because she'd been cooped up for so long at Bolthole, despite having fun with doing so much tech design, and wanted to help unleash the Thunderbolt that had given the operation its name.
"Yes, milady." Astrid replies.
"Thank you, Astrid."
Shannon strolls through the flag bridge, pacing as she looks at all the RMN-style screens. While the RMN and RHN screen setup wasn't quite the same, it was similar enough that it wasn't hard to get accustomed to the console setup, as both navies had based their's on a hypothetical "most efficient design", unlike the SLN SDs captured at Spindle, which diverged substantially from the hypothetical design, even with the partial "Fleet 2000" refit. She's followed closely by her SDF aide, her new SDF staff that she was given, her flag lieutenant, and her security detail. The security detail has been taking some getting used to for her, as she's lived without it for so long. The detail is composed of some of her aunt's best personnel out of her Navy bodyguards, a few of which were her secret bodyguards as a kid, and is to follow her to offworld assignments.
"Does Tracking have an updated report?" she asks her aide.
"The Sollies–, I mean hostiles, stopped translating around 30 seconds ago, and we're looking at 900 impeller signatures, with 200 SDs, and the rest being screening units, milady."
"It's fine, Astrid. Call them Sollies. I'm not upset, and, well, I'd be a hypocrite for doing anything about it, given what I did, back in the People's Navy."
The other people on the flag bridge try to hide their gasps, and are successful to varying degrees, as she continues, pretending like she didn't hear the gasps about her comments about what she did when she was in the PN, "All the evidence, especially what Admiral Trenis found, points to it. We need to launch some of our own recon drones, and kill any Sollie drones that get too close. Topaz will be running the fire control of the system defense pods, and be backed up by Amethyst, with Opal and Emerald in reserve, once they inevitably fail to leave by the SDF's orders, because they are closer than 12 minutes off our hyper limit. As far as our message telling them off goes, the RHN and RMN forces just happened to be here on an exercise as a coincidence. What's the time for the intercepts?"
"Milady, it looks like they are aiming for a zero-zero intercept with Elvana, because they know we have to hold the planet. Time to intercept appears to be 275 minutes." says the Commander running Tracking.
"We'll broadcast the message now. Jump between the FTL buoys, so they stay on their toes." Shannon says. One of Shannon's orders prior to the battle had been to place stealthed Hermes buoys in the system, to not only broadcast data for the Dragonfly missiles, but to also provide communication. Her com officer's fingers run over their keyboard, as they get it ready.
"You're live now." they say. Shannon nods.
"Thanks, Astrid." she replies, before reading her pre-written statement. While everyone else is wearing their skinsuit, minus their helmet, despite the fact that HMS Victory is well outside even the range of Apollo, Shannon's wearing her formal SDF dress uniform, with most of her Republic Navy medals, and a tiara. Diana is wearing her skinsuit, and is well out of the pickup.
"To the unidentified warships– I mean the SLN fleet, you know, that just showed up. I'm Fleet Admiral Shannon Foraker, of the Elvanian SDF, and I speak for the Elvanian government and Grand Alliance, when I say get out of our space. You're not welcome here, Sollies. If you do not start decelerating very soon, we will take measures to protect our system from becoming invaded and conquered." Shannon says, straight to the point, before signaling her com officer to cut the video stream, and saying to them, "Broadcast it on loop, until we get a reply. Also, send a com request to the SLN ships, and with a note saying to put me through to whoever's in charge of the fleet."
Shannon walks off, and puts her skinsuit on, before coming back.
"Has there been any response?" Shannon asks, hoping the answer is yes.
"No, milady." they say.
Then, a SLN SD finally accepts her com request, 10 minutes later. Probably trying to show us they're the boss. Unfortunately for them, they don't have missile pods, and we do, Shannon thinks.
A SLN captain, wearing her skinsuit, and looking grumpy, growls, "Surrender, neobarbs.", before setting back for the long light-speed transmission time. Shannon, to throw the SLN captain off guard, replies faster, with the advantage of the Hermes buoys.
Shannon, her tone sounding icy cold, like Elvana's ice caps, and standing on her tiptoes, to gain every last centimeter of height she can, shakes her head and replies, "Please put me through to whoever's in charge of this fleet, captain. I know you're not in charge." This really shows me just how arrogant the SLN is. Even Mantie COs, with their better hardware, were rarely that arrogant, at least once they realized we had missile pods too, Shannon thinks, as she looks at the captain's insignia, then glances at her own stars and gold braid.
The next words out of the captain's mouth are, "Why should you Peep neo-barbs get to talk to Fleet Admiral Belmont? Do you know who's family he's from?" Well, arrogance sometimes needs to be replied to with superiority, Shannon thinks.
"The PRH became the Republic of Haven 7 years ago. Is your intel that outdated? If so, you probably think we still don't have any SDs that can lay these missile pods, and are still in as bad shape as we were during the RMN's Operation Buttercup. I'll save your intel officer, whoever they are, some work and tell you that we are in much better shape." Shannon says. You're the true neo-barbs, SLN scum. You're even more fucked than we were during Operation Buttercup, as we at least had missile pods, thinks Shannon.
The SLN Captain appears to have almost replied, "Who cares, neo barbs.", but finally, with the apparent FTL communication link they have somehow set up, decides to put the "neo-barbs" through to Fleet Admiral Walker Belmont.
"Hello, neo-barbs. Surrender–" he says, sounding somewhat less grumpy than the captain Shannon had first spoken to. Fleet Admiral Belmont is a tall man, with brown hair, and average looks.
Shannon interrupts, "I know your script, Admiral Belmont. You want to at best, offer the system the 'honor' of joining the League. No thanks. The Elvana system won't become an OFS protectorate. Not if me and my Republic's new allies have anything to say about it. Meet Captain Roger Thorme, of the Royal Manticoran Navy, and my flag lieutenant, Abigail Hearns, of the Grayson Navy." She signals to Captain Thorme to explain. Captain Thorme is a tall Manticoran, with brown hair, who's young for his rank, but skilled.
"Hello, I'm Captain Thorme, of the Royal Manticoran Navy. We realized that you and some other people tried to force us and Haven back to war. We decided, eventually, that that wasn't a good idea. And we're coming for you." He signals the com officer to end the transmission.
After the SLN Fleet has come slightly outside range of the system defense pods, and is on a non-reversible course towards Elvana, Shannon orders the RMN SD(P)s to begin rolling pods, and once the SLN Fleet gets just inside the RMN podlayers's missile range, at 63 million km, Shannon says, "Execute Sophia." The system defense pods in range, fire 500 pods, with 12 missiles per pod, for a total of 6000 missiles at the SLN, firing drives one through three, before letting them coast in ballistic until two million km out, where the final drive fires up. The RMN SD(P)s launch 400 pods of Mark 23s, which even without Apollo would still be plenty deadly, with the long range and the sheer number of missiles in the 10-missile pods.
Sophia was the codename for the first part of Shannon's system defense plan that she had developed with Admiral Bellefeuille. It had the outer system defense pods, which would be the first to be killed in any engagement, fire along with some of the RMN missiles, as they had longer range, before she executed Alice (as she'd named each component of her system defense plan for famous Elvanian queens). Alice was the signal to roll around an eighth of all the RHN SD pods, link them up with Moriarty, and fire them with the inner system defense pods, and Caroline was the codename for when the SLN Fleet got close enough to the deployed Dragonfly pods, which were located a ways out from the SD(P)s and screen, because of their shorter range.
The SLN's Aegis systems, which had been designed for a turn-of-the-century missile engagement, not a MDM podlayer style one, and consisted of ripping a few energy mounts out, and launching countermissile canisters from the already light main missile broadside, tries to cope with the 10 thousand missiles, which against a Havenite podlayer force of 200 podlayers, would have only slightly damaged the podlayers, as it takes from 200 to 250 hits to mission-kill or destroy a RHN SD(P). It fails, just like the RHN SD(P)s had failed against Apollo (they would have performed much better against non-Apollo guided MDMs). Around 1 in 8, or 1250 are shot down, from either Aegis or the point defense clusters, even with precise guidance from either RMN SD(P)s (with Keyhole 1) or Moriarty. The remaining 8750 missiles survive to impact, spread across 55 of the SDs. With roughly 160 missiles per SLN SD, the end is quick. Out of the 55, 45 of them are blown apart in fusion bottle failures. Out of the 10 that aren't vaporized, two of them have destroyed inertial compensators, and the rest have varying degrees of damage that mean they are mission-killed, which is somewhat surprising to Shannon. Our podlayers against RMN missiles (at least pre-Apollo) look amazing by comparison, as I barely hit these with 160 a piece, so far, Shannon thinks.
Shannon watches as the red of hostile units fades off the screen, or is replaced with purple crosses, the standard symbol for damaged ships. Now that the ships are in range of the 1500 RHN SD(P) missile pods, which were based on the homebuilt (not Sollie) design that she'd first used at Adler, as a staff officer, though highly redesigned by her and her team at Bolthole, to go with their new MDM designs.
"Execute Alice." Shannon orders. Shannon watches as her pet project of those years at Bolthole works perfectly, targeting 112 of the rest of the SDs, while still staying out of even SLN missile range, let alone energy range. Very few missiles wander off course, and 91 SDs are vaporized, with the rest becoming like the 10 survivors, turned into hulks.
Then, 30 seconds later, abruptly, every surviving Solarian starship drops their wedge.
"Milady, we're picking up an all-ships transmission from Admiral Iolanthe Markellyn. She wants to surrender." says her com officer.
Note: The survival rate is based off Apollo, without Keyhole 2, and is a little lower, but the SLN is so bad at missile defense, that it doesn't matter much.
In my AU, the PN bought better-than-Battle-Fleet EW (as Battle Fleet plays it conservative, and buys older, "more tested" EW for even their new ships), but home built the missile pods. This was a big deal at the time of early pods, because Havenite R&D finally made a game changer that allowed them to go from always losing to having a chance against non-pod units.
This took a while because it was a space battle, I had a big real life event for a couple of weeks, and I tested positive for COVID on June 25th. I'm doing well, but things may take a while.
I know this is shorter than the last chapter, but it's longer than my early chapters, and we see some action.