Preparing for and Assaulting a Luxanian Listening Post

Arriving in HomeBaseOne, I send out a quick scan pulse. Fila has yet to arrive, but Sbaccanona has. She is scanning a nearby belt for signs of occupation. Knowing her, she’s likely hoping to find someone so she can have her fun. But I doubt she will. This system is practically useless for pirates, it’s not close enough to any standard transport or trade routes. And as far as more organized groups are concerned, its primary benefit is defensibility of small asynchronous forces, making holding it an active hindrance to most corps. No statistically significant material value beyond space, and there’s plenty of more valuable space to hold. I pulse out a message to the Avariata. “Sbaccanona, has the Stirante made it yet?” I ask.

“Yeah, he jumped off into the nebula to set up a proper fallback,” she replies, “Fila make it out of there intact?”

“Far as I’m aware. She left instants before I did.” After a momentary pause, I add, “Likely didn’t feel comfortable charting a straight line path in her new chassis.”

“Or she didn’t feel comfortable with your rats’ repair job holding up to the stress of passing through that one heavy system on the straight line.”

Unfortunately, she might be right. The paralleling job was not the most carefully prepared, and there is a good chance she recognized that fact and is being overly careful to avoid stressing her system. “Continue your scans in the hope you find something to kill, but while you’re scanning, do keep notes of any hideaways in the field large enough for one of us to hide. I’ll go nebula-wards and collect Furgone.”

“Ugh, fine. Why did we put you in charge, anyways?”

I pause as I slowly turn the Topaia around. “Honestly, I shouldn’t be, but who else? We both know it shouldn’t be you.”

“Agreed. And Fila would be too slow and boring.”

“So you want me to hand control of our little gathering over to Furgone?”

“I’m not that dumb. Love the guy, but he needs instructions to follow.”

“Which, unfortunately for all, leaves me by default.” I begin to whir up my gravdrive and microjump over to just outside the nebula next door. I don’t bother scanning, there would be interference anyways and my external sensors are fully powered. I begin to make my way into the nebula itself. Furgone is mapping it, unless I took far longer than I thought, he should not have finished the mapping quite yet. Certainly not long enough to start trapping the thing. Once inside, I get a fuzzy record of the Stirante’s direction. I send out a message. “We are regrouping to plan. Hop back to the Base system when you finish your mapping.”

There is a moment of silence. I wait patiently. There’s a chance the transmission failed to find its way to Furgone’s sensors. He knows that, so once he’d received it, he’d take a moment to finish his immediate task then send acknowledgement. I begin to prepare my impulse drives for leaving the nebula so I can head back myself. Not sure I want to leave Fila and Sbaccanona together for too long. Might get ugly. Sure enough, after a moment, I get a staticy message in return. “Can do. Seven minutes.” The response is curt and to the point. Also, the time estimation does explain why it took so long. Activating my drives, I maneuver my way out of the nebula, then return on the same course that I left moments before.

Fila has already arrived in her cobbled-together pirate freighter. “So,” she begins as I finish whirring down my gravdrive, “What exactly is the plan?”

“Well, I can send you the criteria if you’re interested in running the data yourself, but my current highest estimated system to find one of us remains at point 87554, which as explained earlier by Furgone, is below my ninety percent threshold.”

“Which means you want more information. I guess we are going to hit Luxania?” she replies.

I hedge. “Only one of their listening posts. My data comes from a defunct one taken over by Hadrian, so I could take the information without any real risk of discovery, just had to sac a rat.”

“But a functional one means we get to have our fun,” Sbaccanona adds, approaching from the belt.

“Any good spots?” I send a message asking her.

“A couple,” she replies, along with a map of the field including velocities and estimated masses.

I begin the calculations to estimate acceleration over time and gravitational shadows for ideal ambush points. Then, with that running in the background, I continue. “Probably not. My hope is they’ll report it as a pirate attack.”

“So, I’ll be the first in then,” Fila replies.

“Only. Sort of. For the beginning. If you impulse out of the Oort, while we remain inside it, they’ll think lone pirate. Then I have a few drones latched onto you and they begin their pen with the Luxania shipping records. They should think they can handle it, send out whichever security contractor is in system with a message about a pirate attack. Once we see that message go out, we can exit the cloud and use jump assault tactics to keep them from reporting anything else while we steal every bit of data. Eliminate the security, let Sbaccanona loose on the post once we’re finished with it, then disappear back here.”

Furgone comes in next to us, whirring down his gravdrive and sending out his own map of the nebula, detailing gravitational and radiational anomalies within the dust clouds. “What’s the plan?” he asks.

Fila answers for me. “As of now, you hide outside of view, I go in, Ratti initiates the hack via drone as a search for shipments, they report a small pirate probe, then once that message is out, you guys hop in and kill everything. That final section’s details were unclear.”

“Ratti’s going to need to spend a lot of time with their drive whirred down if they’re going to be microing their drones in the pen. How long do you think it would take you to plot innumerable infinitesimally small gravdrive paths in a random circle around the battlefield? It would allow a disruption while you would still be able to spend most of your time between jumps.”

“I can do it while she’s impulsing out to the station, send my path to everyone for you to incorporate into your own models,” I answer.

“Good. Fila, I don’t think I quite trust you for a continuous, rounded path, so can you, as you start your fake assault, plot courses towards and away from the station itself? Mess with their sensor readings and alter the positions. Ratti can give you their path’s info from one of the drones they’re sending alongside you.”

“Should be doable,” Fila replies.

“And we probably want Sbaccanona to deal with the security efficiently so she doesn’t get antsy, so I suppose that means I need to practice turning in space. Permission to take an hour using the star to fly around in a circle?”

“Go,” I say. My calculations are finished for the asteroid belt, so I should be able to jump just about anywhere in this system. There are a couple of different spots with large enough shadows to hide one of our super-dreadnaughts most times of the year, but not enough for all three. Unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected. I pulse out a message to Fila. “Are you prepared?” I ask.

“No,” she replies, “But my job is easy enough. Are you and Sbaccanona up for whatever the fight is?”

“Worse comes to worse, she’s got her secret batteries of nukes. And I can always activate the listening posts implosion protocol.”

“Alright,” she says,” Just be careful. Lux may have updated their systems and firewalls in the last few centuries. It would be unfortunate for you to lose sight of a key aspect of the battle due to needing to focus on the hack, or vice versa.”

“Thank you for the concern, but do recall, while multitasking is no problem for most of us, it’s sort of my speciality,” I remind her.

Sbaccanona butts in. “Is no one concerned about my job?”

“No,” Fila admits.

I add on. “Your job is killing people. I’ve not once been concerned about you finding a way to do that before, likely never will be.”

“You’re just too kind sometimes, Ratti,” she says, then to Fila adds, “Aren’t they just the nicest?”

Fila repeats the same pulse as before. “No.” Then add a small packet to me. “I would like your criteria for decommissioning system likelihood. If for no other reason, to pass the time.”

I send it over the list, uninhabitable, resource light, heavy corrosion, out of the way, et cetera. She sends a ping indicating receipt of the information then begins her waiting process. I start having my drones outfit the radiation- and corrosion-shielded drones to be suited for the job. Twenty is more than enough to do this pen. I figure I’ll send six on the hull of Fila’s new pirate ship, the Forsaken Cepheid, then have five peel off to begin the digital assault while one remains to keep them easier to link up with. After linking the six, I work to add stronger engine boosters to them. I want to minimize the time between visualization of piracy and the pirate’s apparent probe, to avoid giving them time to think. To fully realize the unlikelihood of the scenario. So more powerful engines to get them to cross the distance faster.

I do manage to get the five drones upgraded and linked to the sixth before Furgone finishes his practice. The Stirante returns and Furgone sends out, “Ready.”

Everyone else replies with their own, “Ready,” and we all plot our courses out to the outskirts of the Luxania border system. Before we activate our gravdrive, I send out a reminder, “Remember, we’re not straight-lining back, no matter how much of a rush we’re in. We’re heading out at a Service-ward vector, doubling back slightly, then heading back to base.”

“Right,” Fila says before her gravdrive activates hurtling her through space.

“We know,” Furgone adds as he leaves the system as well.

“Some of us want that war, too,” Sbaccanona throws in her own response before leaving. I set the two part course for the beginning and gravdrive towards service space, then stop, quickly reposition, and jump into the Oort of the target listening system.

“What took you so long,” Fila asks.

I send my drones in to latch onto the Forsaken Cepheid. I give them the commands as I start calculations for the tiny jumps. “Go time,” I reply instead of answering. The drones magnetically seal to the hull. Everyone sits, hidden in the cloud, as Fila begins to fly out towards the listening post. I finish the calculations and pulse it out to the others in the cloud. I then beam them to the command drone on Fila’s hull, who in turn will tell her. Then, I wait. My command drone has the other five detach as Fila begins the ploy, hailing the station. The team of drones move in swiftly, latching hovering just beyond the shields of the listening station as they begin to piggyback through the transmission. The shield goes down briefly as the inspection team is sent out. The drones latch on, and the system penetration begins in earnest. The base goes on light alert, and Fila blasts the inspection team with the pirate ship’s massive cannon. We hold as the heavy cruiser that was already in system, well equipped to deal with Fila’s small pirate vessel, starts to move confidently towards Fila. I send out the Go signal. Furgone and I start our longer, less obvious gravdrive paths. The others wait a moment, to let the distortion wake build, and to get the cruiser a little closer. The listening post begins firing small point defense lasers, meant for stray missiles, at Fila’s ship. She begins her own gravdrive path, moving towards, then away from the station repeatedly in slightly different directions. Sbaccanona, seeing the cruiser stop in surprise and start to orient itself to attack the strangely moving ship, jumps directly atop the cruiser. I don’t even want to know what is happening in there. Fighters begin to pour out from the cruiser. I shoot them down as I focus on the hack. Using my command drone as a relay, I begin to copy every bit of data from this post.

It takes minutes. Sbaccanona slides away from the cruiser and sends me a message. “All done, can I make the post go beddy bye now?” she facetiously wonders. She knows the plan, and I don’t want Furgone risking the Stirante any more than he’s comfortable with the continuous gravity-assisted gravdrive turn.

“Go,” I say as I recall my drones.

She connects to their system, then fires a pair of missiles. The missiles seem to shear straight through the hull and into the center of the post, before there’s a large detonation. Then, it begins to grow unstable. She hit the core, it’s going to implode. As one, we gravdrive out Service-ward. The wake of three super-dreadnaughts should be enough to linger. Then, we each double back a different amount before jumping back to HomeBaseOne.