>Go fast and aggressive.

>>2146864
>Fast and Aggressive

Insert fighters up their anus.

>>2146864
Time for Deus Vult Quest!
>>Go fast and aggressive.

>>2146864
>>Go fast and aggressive.

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>>2146864
>Gotta go fast

Well, if there's danger, you had best make sure you keep moving. In space combat, there is one primary rule: speed is life. You can't go too fast, since you still need some good sensor data, but a mere 20% of the speed of light works well for your purpose. The final approach to the jump point has you running through systems checks on your little taskgroup, and forming up into a formation better for breaching: battlecruisers and cruisers in front, the more fragile destroyers behind, ready to fan out after the corridor-like approach of jump space. Your auxiliaries are last, of course, carrying little armour and more volatile elements than you like to think about. Your cruiser vanguard reaches the jump point and disappears. Then it's your turn.

The Cherenkov bleed-off is particularly intense when translating down into n-space at such a velocity, but your backup fusion reactors keep your sensors running to confirm one piece of good news- here, at the system's distant Kuiper belt, almost 50 AUs from the star, there are no picket forces, nothing to stop you. Strangely, though, this jump point is out much farther than normal. A quick glance in-system confirms why: the system primary is an absolutely massive blue giant. It can't have much more than a few million years to go before it goes supernova. Still, moving onto more interesting things... There's a single planetoid in the system, already double the size of old Earth and burning a deep red. Why? It's part of the massive disk of dust and debris ringing the star, and that planetoid is orbiting straight through the middle. Constant impacts mar its surface, even as you watch with data several hours old. It's at least a dozen AUs from the star, and apart from the constant cosmic pounding, seems quiet.

You scan the probe's memories again, trying to match constellations. You're fairly certain that while it was going slow enough to still be able to see the stars, it was almost on the other side of the system primary. You'll have to keep going awhile to see anything else.

>Launch fighters now- they can accelerate faster than your ships, and the quicker you get them away, the quicker they can be hitting any enemies.
>Continue along in formation, wait until you get some better data before you make a decision.
>Slow down and go dark. You don't know why there aren't any enemies here, but you should disappear as soon as possible.
>Turn over and go back to where you came. This is probably just an elaborate trap to try to get you as deep in the gravity well as possible.

>>2147027
>>Continue along in formation, wait until you get some better data before you make a decision.

>>2147027
>Slow down and go dark. You don't know why there aren't any enemies here, but you should disappear as soon as possible.

>>2147052
This

>>2147027
>>Slow down and go dark. You don't know why there aren't any enemies here, but you should disappear as soon as possible.

>>2147027
>Sneaky breeki it

Give me some 1d100s, best of 3, for being a peeper.

Also, before I forget, what do people think about me making a pastebin for quest stuff, like a general situation blurb, an updated ship and upgrade list at the end of every chapter, and so on? Maybe a character list, too.

Rolled 21 (1d100)

>>2147136


>>2147140
good idea

Rolled 47 (1d100)

>>2147136
SNEEKIEST OF BREEKI

Rolled 83 (1d100)

>>2147136
rollin
>>2147140
Good idea, though you might want to occasionally dump the contents here after a thread for posterity's sake; archive divers can't look at pastebins without spoiler risks.

>>2147140
Probably a good idea.

BTW, I wanted to ask - last thread, one of the fleet options was CVE with 20 fighters. Did it offer other advantages, considering that three BC have nearly double capacity?

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>>2147140
>83

Not too bad. Writing.

>>2147161
Ah, that's a good idea. I think I'll probably dump a brief update in the thread at the end of every chapter too.

>>2147179
At current, they don't offer massive advantages, no, as you're not that far into the tech tree. I don't want to spoil anything though! You'll have to wait and see (for the new upgrade options and new ship types Flavius and his human eggheads are working on).

>>2147195
>At current, they don't offer massive advantages, no, as you're not that far into the tech tree. I don't want to spoil anything though! You'll have to wait and see (for the new upgrade options and new ship types Flavius and his human eggheads are working on).

What I meant to ask is that, since all options looked like each used roughly equal amount of resources, implying that single CVE took as much resources as three BCs (which provided more hangar space, missile launcher AND sizable weapon battery). I wanted to know if there is a special reason for that.

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>>2147195

After coming to a decision, you have your task force flip end to end, and decelerate sharply for a bit to bring your speed down to where you can actually be stealthy. It's actually very hard to spot a ship at a long distance- Legion ships are the exception, as they don't seem to care how much they radiate into surrounding space. In short order, your task force is moving along at a far slower velocity, and you even introduce a 'sideways' velocity in case there were ships tracking you.

Hours pass as you travel deeper in-system, gradually working your way around the primary to try and find the location the courier drone indicated. Visual sensors are a bit iffy at this range, especially because of the haze of the protoplanetary disk. Finally, though, you hit pay dirt.

A small debris field up above the disk ecliptic surrounded by a small force of Legion ships- it's hard to get an accurate count, but you estimate around 20 cruisers and 26 destroyers. The actual debris field is returning the telltale signs of destroyed Legion ships, along with some you can't seem to identify. Since you arrived on the other side of the star, you might be lucky and avoid detection until you get close enough for them to see your drives behind the ship eclipsing them... and this is a perfect opportunity for your new parasite fighters. On the other hand, perhaps it would be best you get as close as you can for the best intel before engaging.

>Launch strike fighters. Have them make a high-speed strike while you roll in afterwards to mop up the remains.
>Move in with all your ships, with your fighters bulking up your force.
>Hold off for now, and move in closer, try to get a better picture of things.

>>2147233
Yes, I made a mistake and it was meant to be 2 CVEs. The cost is more because they're essentially mobile factories that are designed to build, refuel/recharge, and rearm a fighter complement, especially because the fighters you have at the minute are basically small frigates. Also, the parasite fighters you have do not have any armour, and have to be carried on the hull. If the docking stations they use are hit, they have to be stowed away in your hull (or strapped on top of it).

>>2147275
>>Launch strike fighters. Have them make a high-speed strike while you roll in afterwards to mop up the remains.

>>2147275
>Hold off for now, and move in closer, try to get a better picture of things.
Striking at a closer range is good too.

>>2147275
>Launch strike fighters. Have them make a high-speed strike while you roll in afterwards to mop up the remains.

>>2147275
>>Launch strike fighters. Have them make a high-speed strike while you roll in afterwards to mop up the remains.

>>2147275
>Launch a high-velocity fighter strike.
Roll me those 1d100s.

Rolled 50 (1d100)

>>2147375

Rolled 8 (1d100)

>>2147375

Rolled 22 (1d100)

>>2147375

Rolled 9 (1d100)

>>2147375

Rolled 15 (1d100)

>>2147375
>50

Oof. Rolling...

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>>2147433

You bring the bows of your ships to bear on the enemy, firing thrusters and your main drives very lightly to arrest your lateral momentum. As soon as you're pointed nice and straight, your fighters undock, drifting away from your battlecruisers. They form up in front your ships, 42 of them in all, and their miniature antimatter drives ignite at full thrust. They start pushing ahead at close to a thousand gravities while your own ships follow behind them at a somewhat more sedate pace of just 650 gees.

The Legion ships actually take quite a while to respond to your ships, far more than they should, and as the debris field comes into better resolution, you can see a great hulk of hullplate. It doesn't look like any battleship you're familiar with, but the design is clear, and the shared roots with your own ships clear. Like the Order of Tyr's Star, that ship is indefinably that of another AI.

It is surrounded as if nested by debris from Legion ships, and as a destroyer moves in, a laser reaches out, coring the much smaller vessel after several seconds. The reaction from the Legion fleet is immediate- a volley of plasma hammers at the revealed weapon, smashing it apart. After a good ten minutes, the next ship moves in, to fall prey to some kind of missile that lances out from a tube, and appearing to burrow into the side of the approaching cruiser before detonating in nuclear flame. Again, plasma reaches out, rending open the area around the missile tube. That ship is hurting.

It all makes for interesting watching, but thankfully when the Legion ships notice you, over half their number move up to face down your fighters. They release their missiles then they're still quite far out, and the oversized Counter Mass devices fitted to what are essentially giant crowbars with engines reduce their mass by over 90%. They rocket forward, and damage sweeps over the Legion ships that formed up to face them down. At least a dozen cruisers and destroyers are completely wrecked, and others drift, great fragments split from their hull. Oh, but that's not the best part. Not at all.

A few minutes later, your fighters get into range. They're only travelling at half lightspeed, so they can aim, and that allows the Legion to target them. Transponders blink off your tactical map, but not before they get off their oversized spinal mounts. Destroyers are simply cored by the weapons, their black hulls unable to absorb the charged atoms that flay their hull. The cruisers actually fare much better, because your fighters only have enough time for a single shot, which is insufficient to actually kill any of them. Even so, they take damage. Many appear to have large craters in their hull that reveal inner passages, and are sent into tumbles by the explosive venting of the atmosphere those strange drones of theirs appear to enjoy.

cont.

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>>2147582

Half the enemy ships have been destroyed in that single fighter pass, it looks like. Even if there aren't any capitals, that's quite the achievement. As you watch, too, the broken battleship comes alive, its remaining energy mounts licking at the Legion ships that attempt to interpose themselves between it and you.

>TF Dauntless: 7 BC, 10 CR, 12 DD, 31 Fighters
>Legion fleet: 17 CR (some heavily damaged), 9 DD
>???: 1 BB (extreme damage)

>Continue with your original plan with a high-speed fleet pass.
>Slow down to a crawl and brawl it out with energy mounts to avoid hitting that unknown ship.
>Slow down to a crawl and pound the enemy with missiles before you move in.

>>2147608
>>Slow down to a crawl and pound the enemy with missiles before you move in.

>>2147608
would the first or third option let us spare the unknown ship?

>>2147608
>>Slow down to a crawl and brawl it out with energy mounts to avoid hitting that unknown ship.

>>2147608
>Slow down to a crawl and brawl it out with energy mounts to avoid hitting that unknown ship.

>>2147682
You obviously would be trying to spare it either way, but the first means you might not destroy all of them at once and the Legion might be able to destroy it before you can get back.

Of the other two, the third is slightly more dangerous, but it's still pretty unlikely (we're talking critical glitch) that any missiles would hit the unknown ship.

>>2147608
>Slow down to a crawl and pound the enemy with missiles before you move in.

>>2147700
Personally, I am more worried that Legion will have time to destroy allied BB.

While they are clearly trying to capture him right now, it could change once they realize that they are fucked, and missile engagement will give them more time to do so.

>>2147766
Exactly. All of the options have some risk, either to you or to the BB.

Anyway, I'm going to wait a little longer for a tiebreaker before rolling one.

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>2147807
Alright, tiebreaker it is.

>>2147807
Sorry, that's odds for missiles, evens for lasers before I can see it.

>>2147941
Right, after that minor retarded episode, writing!

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>>2147961
>Missiles

After a hard deceleration burn to slow enough for a prolonged missile duel, you swing your ships to present their broadsides, and get to work. Your first salvo numbers just under 300 missiles. Not a bad number whatsoever, and its only halfway through their flight that the enemy's ECM comes online. A third of your missiles wander off or are shot down by point defence, but the rest get through. Their flight is lengthened somewhat by having to move onto a track that their bomb-pumped lasers won't risk damaging the unknown ship, but there's simply too many. The rolling thunder of laser heads spear the Legion cruisers first, deadly lattices of energy criss-crossing your tactical display.

The Legion cruisers are wiped out in that single salvo, but the enemy force manage to get off a round of their missiles in response. However, there are only a few dozen, and instead of a discrete volley they're launched in a staggered wave. Your broadside energy mounts pick off most, and the laser clusters aboard your destroyers handle the rest. Then your second salvo arrives, and with little to stop it, the missiles eliminate all remaining Legion ships standing between you and that unknown ship.

---

You continue to decelerate your ships into a rough picket formation and hit the ship with a few friendly radio pings, the AI equivalent of, "Hey, you in there?" Unfortunately, you get nothing in response. However, one of your destroyers spots armoured shutters rolling open on its flank- the entrance to some kind of docking bay, it would appear.

>Send a shuttle with some drones and a communications relay. If you need to, you can make physical contact with their core.
>This might be some sort of trap. Stand off for now, and prepare a boarding party to move in with force.

>>2148133
>>Send a shuttle with some drones and a communications relay. If you need to, you can make physical contact with their core.

>>2148133
>>Send a shuttle with some drones and a communications relay. If you need to, you can make physical contact with their core.

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>>2148133
>Send a shuttle

Luckily, your auxiliaries have some cargo shuttles aboard, used for shifting supplies to other ships while in transit. Now, one of them loads up with some maintenance drones and a hardened comm relay, then uses its chemical thrusters to cross the distance between the auxiliary and the unknown battleship. It disappears into the docking bay, and you watch with interest through the shuttle's sensors as it lands, using electromagnets in its landing legs to fasten itself to the deck. The docking bay appears compact, though empty. You spend a moment wondering what happened to the small craft clearly once docked inside, but decide it probably doesn't matter.

Your drones pull out the comm relay, plugged with a hard line into the shuttle, and are met by a team of robotic drones - similar, but different to yours - who are also holding a cable. Great minds think alike, it seems. Thankfully, the cable itself uses a nano-collar, a small ring around the head impregnated with nanites that allow the cable to plug into almost any port.

After a few moments, you become aware of another mind. The bandwidth isn't amazing, but their voice, dry as a desert, comes through clearly.

"Well, thank God for His miracles. You got here just in time."

You're a little taken aback, but try to take it in your stride.

"And you are?" You ask.

"I am Knight-errant Temeraire, formerly of the Order of Solomon's Keep. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, ah...?"

Now, you know your basic galactic geography, and you haven't heard of the Order of Solomon's Keep. The Legion incursion has mostly been confined to the territory of your Order and that of the Order of Tyr's Star, and the brother Order on your other side is one that has a silly name like the Knights of Ngethu, or somesuch. This is getting curiouser and curiouser.

"Knight-brother Dauntless, of the Order of Radiant Light."

"Wonderful. Now, you must help me get to your Grandmaster, or whatever you call them. I know how to defeat these demons once and for all."

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And thus ends this week's chapter of the quest, I'm afraid. Unfortunately, personal life is eating into my time this close to Christmas, but I should be running both next week and the week after that for sure, hopefully both the Friday and Saturday.

I'll try to get that pastebin up and running by next time, and I'm sorry that things have to be left here. I'm not sorry about the cliffhanger, though.

Thank you for playing, and have a nice night!

>>2148383
good night bud.

>>2148383
Thanks for the run

>>2148383
Thanks for the thread.

>>2148383
Thanks for running pixel! As always a great time