Chapter 49

Deep space

Rendezvous point

"Admiral. Its good to see you again." Said Sarah, sincerely, as Soliensky's face appeared on her screen.

"I have to say, the pleasure is all mine captain. You are, after all, essential to this operation. Me...less so."

Sarah chuckled as she looked at the multitude of icons on the display on her bridge, all of them with Dominion Navy codes.

"Perhaps admiral, but I'm not going to turn down your help."

The admiral laughed back.

"No, I suppose not. Say, captain, could I interest you in coming over for dinner with me and my senior officers? I believe we could all use some familiarity with one another before we start the formal briefings and draw battle plans."

Sarah hesitated, then nodded. There was a small chance that if she set foot on that ship she'd be politely, but firmly, asked to stay until the operation as over, as a guarantee of her crew's loyalty, but not only would that be monumentally stupid, it would also breach the lord protector's word...and as much as she believed the lord protector would do it if necessary, it was hardly the case, and he couldn't afford to have one of his admirals disobey his orders, not with the specter of a new civil war getting ominously larger and larger in the background.

"Of course, it will be my pleasure admiral. May I bring my senior officers?"

"Of course, of course! Very well, will eighteen hundred standard work for you?"

A quick look at her internal clock showed her it would give her 4 hours to get ready, which was more than acceptable.

"It does."

"Excellent! I will forward you the composition of my fleet, as well as our current capabilities, to prepare for the meeting."

*****

"So?"

"In total? 6 battle carriers, a single light cruiser, a dozen frigates, and almost a thousand gunships and corvettes."

Sarah whistled softly.

"That's not bad. For the Dominion, at least."

"It isn't. Still, the light cruiser...isn't exactly the newest. I'm surprised they haven't retired it to the reserve already honestly. The battle carriers though...Half of them are small, basically little more than converted freighters. Another two are purpose built, easily worth another light cruiser each in firepower. And the last one...well." Elteria gestured at the display, which zoomed on the icon at the heart of the Dominion's formation. "Remember the TRF's Q-Caravan? Well, this is what it would look like if it was built by soldiers and they couldn't give less of a shit being found out. 6.3 kilometers long, 2.5 gigatons. Total capacity is for 2 thousand gunships, or an eighth in corvettes. Plus 12 thousand missile launchers, as many dedicated point defence lasers, and 60 heavy battle lasers. Not as powerful as ours, but I really, really wouldn't want to end up on the wrong end of its broadsides. It outmasses most Dominion heavy cruisers and while it doesn't have the same armaments, it has a thousands stars damned gunships to fill the gap, that's at least four thousand more missile launchers and two thousand more lasers."

Sarah nodded. That was, of course, pathetic compared to even a single Dominion battlecruiser, of which even the most energy weapons oriented mustered over three hundred thousand missile launchers. Still, it was what they had available, and it was most welcome.

"Let's just hope it's enough to tip the scales in our favor."

"I suppose we'll see, won't we?"

"Right. Alright, I said my senior officers, so warn Turral and Hector to put on their nicest uniforms. Same goes for all of you." Said Sarah as she raised her voice to address her bridge officers. "And try to behave. We're meeting an admiral after all."

Everyone chuckled, and Sarah looked at her AI.

"Oh, and just to make it clear, that goes for you as well."

Elteria sighed.

"Damn it. I was afraid you'd say that. Alright, I'll pull out the android."

"Good." Sarah chuckled grimly. "If nothing else, I'd love the backup."

*****

If anyone was surprised to see Sarah arrive with no less than six officers for a measly gunship, no one made a comment. The marines that greeted them after docking with Soliensky's flagship were polite, courteous, and every single one of them was in power armor and armed like they expected a grav tank to bust through a bulkhead at any second.

Fortunately it didn't take very long to get to their intended destination. The upside of using what was essentially a carrier was that there were a lot of internal transportation systems. A transport pod, a cross between an elevator and a grav car, swallowed Sarah's party as well as their escorts and whisked them away to the flag bridge and its adjoining break and briefing rooms in record time.

"Ah, captain Ciel-étoilé!" Said Soliensky as he got up from behind the dinner table. "Come in, please!"

Sarah smiled and stepped inside the room, mentally classifying everyone within in a handful of seconds. She might have left the Directorate Navy decades ago, but the skill to categorize a roomful of officers at a glance had never truly left her. Mostly because it was as much, if not more, useful for a mercenary than a regular naval officer.

About two thirds of the officers here were captains. They all wore the customary gold rocket of course, but even then their demeanor would have been a dead giveaway. The rest were...a solid core around Soliensky himself looked to be his staff. Then a handful of officers had the rank tabs and the look of commodores, probably the gunship and corvette squadron leaders. The last two officers were a bit weirder. One practically faded into the background, and Sarah caught him precisely because of that. His uniform was unremarkable, his features plain, and he looked like an aide...except that he wasn't glued to a superior officer.

Intelligence officer. Instantly thought Sarah, before focusing on the last officer.

That one wasn't exactly hard to guess. The Dominion didn't have any particular problems with cybernetic and genetic augmentations, but even for them a navy officers who had replaced a good third of their body mass in machinery would have raised some eyebrows. Marine commander, most likely.

"Admiral Soliensky. It is a pleasure to meet you in person once more. Please, allow me to present my officers. This is Elteria, my executive officer and ship's AI." Elteria bowed slightly, and Sarah almost chuckled at the stupefied look some of the officers gave the AI, which quickly turned to envy. A ship's AI was virtually every self respecting captain's wet dream after all. "And this is Conciniera Reihart, my communications officer. This is-"

The introductions went on for almost five minutes as Soliensky reciprocated with his own people. Sarah tried to actually remember the names of the commodores, but simply filed the names of the captains into her implants. There were simply too many of them.

"Now that we are all reasonably acquainted, please, take a seat. While my stewarts aren't necessarily 3 stars chefs, I do believe that they will manage to feed us most satisfactorily." As Sarah and her officers sat down, the admiral gestured, and a small army of stewarts flowed from the doors, carrying trays laden with food and drinks. "Please, let us enjoy the meal before discussing business."

Sarah suppressed a shrug, before almost blinking as a stewart deposited a bowl of what looked like some very thick soup, and smelling it. She wasn't exactly an epicurian, but she most definitely could recognize good food when she smelled it, and a simple spoonful was enough to confirm that first impression.

The room dissolved into the noises of content eating, until everyone finished their courses, and the empty bowls and other ustensils were whisked away by the ever efficient stewarts. Soliensky sighed, and leaned back into his seat.

"Alright, so now that we at least had some food, I assume everyone here is familiar with the situation we find ourselves in?"

Everyone around the table nodded.

"Excellent then. Well, first things first, any questions as to our orders?"

Everyone shifted for a second, before a commodore cleared his throat, and leaned forward.

"Yes commodore Salver?"

"Well, sir, I was wondering...If this target is so important, and effectively stationary, why are we attacking now? We only have a single ship that might charitably be called a ship of the wall, and our vessels are quite frankly not equipped for a siege battle if it turns out that the objective is heavily fortified."

"A very good point commodore." Given how prepared Soliensky looked, Sarah wouldn't be surprised if he'd more or less arranged the question in advance. There were some questions that needed to be asked during these kinds of pseudo-briefings, and sometimes the best way of doing it was basically orchestrating it, or at least so had Sarah learned in her own time as a flag officer. "The reasons are quite simple. So far our enemies, who refer to themselves as the 'TRF', or 'Thaumor Revolutionary Front', have proven fanatically devoted to their cause...and ready to cause as much destruction and loss of life as they think necessary to achieve their goals or deny strategic assets." He nodded towards Sarah. "As captain Ciel-étoilé personally learned at Arion, where the local insurgency seemingly destroyed an orbital habitat housing over a million of their own people, presumably to cover the tracks of their masters. We are afraid that they would be willing to rig the entire mines to blow if we give them the time to do so, and kill all of their workers doing so."

That made quite a few officers wince. Sarah didn't, but she could see where they were coming from. Even for her, who'd gazed at the Ashen Stars and their dead worlds, that was too many innocents to sacrifice. A mining and refining operation of the scale needed to fund that rebellion would need millions of people at least. Possibly more, although those could be dispersed at distant support sites if you were willing to lose some efficiency.

"As for the fortifications, well, our intelligence indicates otherwise. Commander, if you will?" Continued Soliensky.

The intelligence officer nodded, and rose from his seat.

"While our intelligence on the target is limited, even a cursory analysis of the region makes it clear that conventional defensive installations would be impractical, if not outright impossible. Space stations of any kind would end up being worn down and rendered inoperable by the incessant stellar winds, and most surface installations would eventually suffer the same problem. There is no avoiding that, and even shields need to cycle eventually." Everyone around the table nodded, Sarah and her crew joining them. "However we believe that there would indeed be some kind of fixed defensive system. Ships are all well and good, but even from a hangar with a launch tube they take time to deploy. Logic dictates that they would have something to hold off an attack until their guard ships have managed to get out."

A captain rose her hand, and Sarah had to stop herself from laughing. What was this, a freaking classroom? Then she saw the officer's age and her urge to laugh died off. The captain looked so young she was probably fresh from the academy. Gods, even Seria looked more experienced!

"Couldn't they have their guard forces already deployed?"

"They could, in theory, but the guardships would inevitably run into the same problem as defensive stations would. So while they probably have at least one picket ship, it is unlikely there are very many out into the solar winds. Even regularly cycling many starships would impose a massive, and probably unacceptable, strain on their components. We have to remember, this has to be one of their most secret installations. The lengths captain Ciel-étoilé had to go to in order to acquire its location confirms that. The less ships that come and go, the less crews they have to vet for loyalty, and the less the risks of a leak or a spy. That would also explain why most of the freighters moving their divinium around appear to be on the same routes over and over again, as that would once again limit the number of people that could spill the secret."

Once again everyone nodded.

"So, in that case, what do you think is their security measure and delaying tactic?" Asked another of the commodore.

"My staff figures that there are three broad options. The first one is to have gunship hangars drilled in near the surface for rapid deployment. However, we think it is unlikely, as while gunships would be faster to deploy than full scale starships, it does not mean that they can be scrambled quickly, especially in the case of an emergency. Which reduces us to two options, about as likely as each other, and we believe they are most likely using a combination of both: drones backed up by missile silos."

Sarah sat back as she thought. The drones she'd considered, but dismissed. They'd get wrecked in that environment, not to mention basically have to run solely on onboard computers thanks to the complete mess any coms would be in the area. But on the other hand, if they were just there as sacrificial lambs to buy time for the real ships...as for the missile silos, they had a key problem. Once they were open, the ambiant radiation would absolutely screw the launch system, that meant one use silos, while the drones would be able to fly themselves out through a hardened pseudo airlock. And while you could fire an absolutely awesome amount of missiles in a single volley if you were willing to drill in many of them, they wouldn't serve for a sustained engagement. But once again, if they didn't need to fight for long...

"That makes sense." She said, before she could catch herself, and continued on as if she'd meant to speak up from the beginning as everyone turned towards her. "Drones wouldn't survive very long in that environment, although they might surprise us. But with a few hundred of them providing point defence fire, with the missiles providing the offensive punch, they could prevent a force from jumping in close and blasting away the ship launch corridors. Or at least make them pay such a price that they would effectively kill themselves doing it, assuming the attacking force didn't arrive with overwhelming superiority, in which case the point would be moot as defeat would be inevitable no matter what they did."

Which in this case would almost certainly mean a capital ship, probably several. Dominion battlecruisers were good, but even they needed time to acquire and shoot down missiles. Even a relatively small volley this close, especially with all the sensor hashing from the environment, could sign their death warrant.

"Exactly." Said the intelligence officer. "That is our analysis as well. As for their actual numbers..." He shrugged. "It is hard to tell. Technically, they could have millions of drones and billions of missiles stockpiled there, but..."

"If they did then we're fucked no matter what we do." Said Soliensky. "Us, and the Dominion as a whole. If they can afford that kind of firepower to defend a site they've gone at great length to conceal, well, they can probably afford to throw squadrons of battleships at us if necessary, which we can all agree is pretty unlikely, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with all of their shiny tiny shipyards."

That made several of the officers chuckle. Some of them were forced, but still, chuckles.

"Which brings me to the guard ships." Picked up the intelligence officer. "They are a complete unknown. However, there are some basic parameters we can extrapolate from. The first one is that, quite frankly, bigger ships will fare better in this mess. Their shields will hold against the solar winds for longer, and even if said shields collapse they should be able to continue fighting for a while despite the radiation, thanks to the more numerous redundancies and deeper armor afforded by their size. Plus, if they have a drone swarm, they will have the escort role already filled. We thus think that they will use a handful of larger ships, from frigate to heavy cruisers, to guard their installation. As to how they'll compare against our own ships..." He shrugged. "I doubt that they have our best systems, but lets be honest, while our armament programs have made tremendous progress in the past 5 decades, even obsolete systems from the Civil War would still tear us a new one, if in sufficient quantity."

"Which means that we will most likely be fighting a fleet with overall heavier ships that ours, although with fewer hulls." Said Soliensky. "They'll have the drones to fill in the gap somewhat, but especially in this mess, they won't be able to compensate for the lack of true escort vessels." He sighed. "Normally, I wouldn't order our gunships out into such an environment, unfortunately we don't have a choice. They are an advantage we will need, even if we outmass them. That means that we will lose a lot of gunships, and with these damned solar winds, even escape pods won't last long."

Everyone grimly nodded. Escape pods were famously made for extremely adverse conditions -debris fields, active battlefields, ect-, but even they weren't made to survive a constant solar storm. At least the Dominion ones, the Eternal Seeker's could have navigated through the upper levels of a star's corona if push came to shove, but that wouldn't matter to the poor bastards on the Dominion's gunships.

"And if we need the gunship, that means that we will need time to deploy them as well." Continued the admiral. "Thus, distance. If they indeed have missile silos and drone launchers, they might very well have the advantage if we jump in too close. We will jump at a distance of 30 million kilometers, and deploy our parasite crafts immediately. All escort vessels will deploy forward to cover the capital ships and hopefully extend the range of our sensors."

Sarah nodded. At that range, it would take a bit over three and a half hours for the Dominion's battle carriers -whose maximum acceleration was 75g- to make a zero-zero intercept with the mining site. That would also give her enough time to cycle the hyperspace missiles before they got into the enemy's missile range. If they were using Low Verge missiles.

If they weren't, well...this endeavor was doomed to begin with. Which was why she had instructed Normensk to get them a variety of discreet escape vectors, and confirmed with Turral that push came to shove, they could go into stealth and take the radiation on the armor while they made a discreet getaway, while the Dominion died valiantly and messily. She wanted that payout, but she wasn't going sacrifice her men for the glory of the Dominion either.

"The Eternal Seeker will also provide sensor support, both for the jump, and during the battle."

Once again everyone turned towards Sarah, and she shrugged.

"As much as we can anyway. Our sensors are much better than yours, but even they have their limit. As long as we maintain a solid communication link with you we should be able to maintain decent initial targeting solutions for your missiles even at their maximum range, but beyond that..." Sarah shrugged again. "No promises."

That was a blatant lie -Elteria's own estimates were that they should be able to get even passable targeting solutions from over 40 million kilometers, at least if they went active-, but the Dominion couldn't exactly use the data beyond that range anyway. Well, they'd pass on their estimates for the enemy ships' capabilities of course, but the Dominion didn't need to know quite how good their sensors were.

After all they were their allies now, but that didn't mean they wouldn't end up as her enemies on another contract.

"Of course captain. Still, even that would be an enormous advantage. And now, I believe my stewarts have the main course ready, let us take another pause."