>>2353245
>>Form up, ambush the Legion ships chasing your fighters, then smash the rest of the Legion facilities.
I think we can swing it, just need to be clever about it.

Time for Deus Vult!

>>2353245
>>Form up, ambush the Legion ships chasing your fighters, then smash the rest of the Legion facilities.

>they were mostly trying to kill your battlecruisers... in fact, they almost all focused on one. How strange.
check if our core was onboard it during a battle with the legion

>>2353245
>>Form up, ambush the Legion ships chasing your fighters, then smash the rest of the Legion facilities.

File: Milk Run 4.png (31 KB, 988x811)

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>>2353245
>Finish your mission

"We should do what we came here to do." With a thought, you call up the combat data from your fighters. "If we move now, we should be in position to ambush the Legion if they continue chasing my fighters. After that, we can strike the rest of the facilities here and leave."

Admiral Tourville looks at his Ops Officer, who makes a few calculations on his datapad. "Certainly seems possible." He agrees.

"Very well. Captains," He looks to the wall pickup, where the human captains are linked in and watching, "Make your ships ready to leave. You'll receive maneuvering orders shortly. Dismissed." As they disconnect, he starts issuing orders to the rest of his staff. "We'll follow you in." He tells you.

Well, looks like you're to decide on how to approach this. Assuming the Legion ships are following your fighters still, you have two options:
First, cruise past the Legion vessels as they go past in a combined hivel strike, and carry on no matter how much damage you do, letting your fighters finish off the rest.
Second, you can attempt to merge with the Legion vessels as they come around the primary, and take your time pounding them to pieces.

>First method.
>Second method.
>Alternate third method (write-in).

>>2353322
>>First method.

>>2353322
>>First method.

>>2353322
>>First method.

File: ibsAJoQgUCkgN7.jpg (162 KB, 900x512)

162 KB JPG

Rolled 51 (1d100)

>>2353322
>First method

Roll me 2d100. First for you, second for the humies.

Rolled 63, 14 = 77 (2d100)

>>2353370

Rolled 100, 70 = 170 (2d100)

>>2353370

>>2353372
> 100
D E U S V U L T
E
U
S
V
U
L
T

Rolled 72, 92 = 164 (2d100)

>>2353370

>inb4 double nat 1's

File: 1377667599318.gif (623 KB, 236x158)

623 KB GIF

>>2353372

>>2353370
100, 91 vs 51

So I was just finished the first 3000-character post and as I went to post it, firefox decided now would be a good time to refresh. Not only that, my form recovery addon, it turns out, no longer works. I'm going to go scream, make some tea, then see about re-typing it.

>>2353450
I recommend you write in word/notepad/etc and copy/paste your posts to prevent exactly what you described. I've heard several other QMs mention doing something similar.

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>>2353450
Your ships boost out away from the gas giant in tight formation. Behind you, safely out of your drive plumes, the humans follow along behind. After a bit, the only excitement is when you cut the drives of your ships at the end of their burn, firmly on course for the gravity assist around the red giant primary, which steadily grows in front of your as the hours tick by. You spend the time checking your ships, making sure their weapons systems are up to the hivel pass you’re going to be conducting. You also spend time tapped into the human fleet ‘net, listening to the chatter between ships. There’s an undercurrent of nervousness, but it seems to be holding together well enough.

Finally, the star fills your entire starboard side as you plunge onwards. Your estimation timer reaches zero, and keeps going, counting the minus seconds. At two minutes and four seconds, your fighters flash past. Suddenly receiving updated orders, they flip end for end just as the Legion ships follow them. Your ships and their tactical systems engage. The entire massed laser broadside of your taskforce fires as one.

Perhaps if there were battleships in the enemy formation then some of the lighter ships would have escaped in the need to ensure a kill. Unfortunately for them, the cruisers simply can’t withstand the energy being thrown around, from the combined focused beams of your destroyers to the mighty strikes of your battleships and star carrier. The Legion ships are ripped apart, reduced to component atoms, utterly smashed. The follow-up strike from your fighter’s particle lances are practically overkill on the dying hulks, and just before their momentum carries them out of sight you see them start to decelerate. They’ll catch up with you later.

As you finish your gravity assist and come out from behind the star on course for the second gas giant, you receive a signal from Count Tilly that reads “You could have left some for us.” Amused, you highlight the Legion ships in orbit of the second gas giant and send the human ships your targeting data. The chatter between ships takes on a more predatory edge as they lay in firing solutions. However, much earlier than you’d expect, the first salvo abruptly launches from their bow tubes. Even more strangely, it’s (relatively) slow compared to the acceleration you know the human missiles are capable of. Curious, you watch as they launch salvo after salvo from their tubes, each one accelerating a little faster than the last. Finally, you realise what’s going to happen. All those missiles, so primitive they’re much harder to spot than yours and essentially ballistic by the time they arrive, will all hit the Legion fleet practically at the same time.

cont.

>>2353568
The nuclear flash of their strike is a beacon in the sky of the gas giant as Legion ships are torn apart. The human missiles are too dumb to even be tricked by enemy jamming when they’re finally detected. You’re still examining the wreckage, heartily impressed, when the Admiral contacts you.

“Do you think they have another one of those platforms here?” He asks without preamble.

>They might. You should blow the gas mining station at long range and move on.
>They might, and it’s your job to check.
>Probably not. Move in and eliminate that mining station.

Losing that post really annoyed me, sorry that took so long.

>>2353559
I am aware, but I used to have a really great form recovery addon that worked perfectly with 4chan. Unfortunately, it seems one of Firefox's updates disabled it without letting me know.

>>2353576
>>They might, and it’s your job to check.

>>2353576
>>They might, and it’s your job to check.

>>2353576
>>They might, and it’s your job to check.

File: atlas_carrier_concept_mk5(...).jpg (1.69 MB, 1920x1080)

1.69 MB JPG

>>2353576
>Check it out

You suppose you need to have a look, but you don't want to take your ships in close. You tell this to the admiral.

"If you can take a look with a drone or somesuch, then we can nuke it for you." He announces. A tempting thought, but the other platform comes to mind. If there is one here, you kind of want to investigate it. But that might mean dealing with those fighters again.

>Scout and nuke.
>Scout and attempt to board.

>>2353670
>>Scout and attempt to board.

>>2353670
>>Scout and attempt to board.

>>2353670
>>Scout and attempt to board.

File: john-chen-c3.jpg (226 KB, 1600x720)

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Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>2353670
>Attempt to board
Yeah, roll me those 1d100s. I hope you get better scores.

Rolled 25 (1d100)

>>2353689

Rolled 82 (1d100)

>>2353689

Rolled 1 (1d100)

>>2353689

>>2353709

Fuck

>>2353709
What the fuck?

>>2353709
YOU HAD ONE JOB

>>2353713

What's that, a 0.09% chance of occurring?

>>2353689
>1 (critfail!) vs 66

You launch a large spread of drones ahead at the gas giant. Ballistic, they insert in a shallow orbit, and you wait with baited breath - okay well you don't breathe, but you appreciate the saying - as they disappear behind the horizon, and appear over two hours later as they come back around. They found... absolutely nothing. Huh. You share your findings with the admiral, and he nods.

"Perhaps they hadn't set one up here yet. We'll deal with the station, if you don't mind?"

You hand off that responsibility to the humans, and they fire a broadside as your combined battlegroups come around to head through the asteroid belt. The humans' nuke salvo guts the non-armoured station, and its ruin starts to fall into the gas planet's atmosphere. There's a feeling you can't quite explain... but you shake it off as your fighters catch up, and you blow up the rest of the mining stations. With your mission complete, you set course for home.

>Discuss something with the humans on your way back to Bastion (write-in).
>Leave them to their devices.

>>2353832
Damn, forgot a pic again.

>>2353832
>>Discuss something with the humans on your way back to Bastion (write-in).
what they thought went well and what they thought did not.

>>2353832

>Discuss

Go over battle data and analysis with the top brass and then with the officers. This was their first serious engagement, and the whole point of it is to make sure that they can do this on their own in the future. Plus, the squishies have shown a great deal of innovation in short periods of time; the experience fighting probably revealed some faults that need addressing and fixing.

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Okay, I've been trying to write the same sentence for twenty minutes. I'm going to turn in and resume this in the morning. Thanks for playing everyone!

>>2353927
Thanks for running!

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And we're back. Unfortunately, I'm still tired, but what can you do.

The next day, as your battlegroup transits through the system you've already come through once, Admiral Tourville calls a meeting of his staff and senior captains to go over the Second Fleet's first ever combat mission. He invites you as well, though you feel it's more to be polite than anything else.

"Right, let's get this meeting in order." The Admiral announces, rapping his knuckles on the conference table. "I'll start off by saying it's a damn shame we lost Scimitar, Baudin, Bouvet, and Bruat. We'll be having a funeral for the six hundred men and women lost tomorrow. Let your crews know." He glances at each of the faces around the table. "However, I want to stress that it isn't anyone's fault. The enemy hit us with a damned new weapon, but we fought it off with less casualties than anyone would've expected."

You wonder if it's for his captain's benefit that he doesn't mention that it was because they were targeting you. In fact, after more careful examination of the combat footage, you're pretty sure that the human ships lost were hit for the same reason as your screen- the fighters involved couldn't find one of your battlecruisers. You're still puzzling over their single-minded behaviour, but that's something to inform the Abbot of when you get back. Meanwhile, the Admiral's chief of staff (Captain Steve Jones, you found out) has risen from his seat.

"In the nitty gritty of things, morale seems to be holding well. We lost people, yes, but we followed it up by watching Dauntless," His eyes flick to the wall pickup, "Wipe out a battlegroup, and then doing the same thing ourselves. The new Time On Target missile launch seems to be a complete success, too. Overall, I'd say the mission was a definite success, and from what I've heard the crews are working well."

He sits, and a captain whose name you don't know speaks up next.

"We're going to need to work out some kind of close-in defence for those fighters, though. Our main tubes just don't cut it, and our ships can't make the power for PD lasers like the Order's can."

The Admiral's ops officer replies, "Well, what if we see about..."

And so the discussion continues. You find it quite interesting, actually. Humans are so fractious, so slow at communicating compared to you and your brethren. A fleet in battle can't afford to discuss strategy, so they make a leader. But when they're out of danger, they can pool resources to solve problems. It's quite charming.

You don't keep much attention on the discussion, instead concentrating on checking your fighters on their far-flung CSP. Only half-heard, the humans discuss some kind of hull-mounted missile launcher firing relatively small munitions for dealing with the fighters, and the Admiral says he'll submit the suggestion in his next report.

cont.

>>2354939
It moves onto the minutiae of munitions spent and training required, though a couple of the captains note that if they hadn't been drilling for damage control, they might have lost more ships. Eventually, there's a lull in the conversation, and the Admiral glances over to the wall pickup. You haven't said anything so far.

>Discuss something specific (write-in).
>Suggest further training and drills on the way home.
>Tell them you don't have anything to add.

>>2354943
>>Discuss something specific (write-in).

If the losses were so low only because Legion strike craft focused on us, it might be prudent for the humies to have *something* to deal with such attacks in the future. Better ECM? Decoys mimicking Order ships?

>>2354943
supporting: >>2354991

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>>2354943
>Suggest some upgrades

"What about an electronics upgrade?" You suggest. "Those strike craft can't have spectacular sensors."

"I don't know about that." Captain Jones frowns. "As far as I know, we're already hitting the envelope of our power when it comes to ECM."

One of the humans clears his throat, and everyone turns to look at Captain Robinson. "Actually, Admiral, my chief engineer was been looking at a way to put a fusion plant in a decoy. It won't be cheap, but it'd give us a drastically higher energy budget to play with."

Admiral Tourville is nodding happily. "Tell him that it should be his top priority. I'll make sure it's sent back to the boffins as soon as we get back to Bastion."

The conversation moves on to other strategies for dealing with the Legion fighters, but they mostly involve you keeping several squadrons of grav-fighters along to defend your larger ships.

The days pass as you transit back to Bastion, and the humans continue their drills, though at a much slower rate than before. From what you can see, they seem much more confident, so perhaps you also succeeded with your mission. Your arrival back into Order-controlled space is routine, though there's a Knight-brother patrolling quite near the jump point- Benbow.

"Good to see you, Dauntless." He greets you amiably, "Abbot Darius said he wanted to see you as soon as you got back. How'd taking the humans out for a walk go?"

>Boast
>Neutral
>Polite

>>2355069
>>Boast

>>2355069
>>Polite
Don't be too smug to someone we don't know yet

>>2355069
>polite boasting

>>2355123
You're fired.

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>>2355069
>Polite with a bit of boast because fuck me

"Wasn't too bad. Had some complications of course, but I think I dealt with it pretty well. The humans actually helped, too."

"Excellent. Anyway, I won't keep you, you'd better hurry on in. I think there are some reinforcements for the humans as well."

Benbow bids you goodbye, his ships settling back down into their stealthy lurking as you align your bows on Bastion Station. You cruise nice and steady towards Bastion- a couple of the human ships have troublesome engines from the battle still. They'll have to go into a slip for a little while.

As always, Bastion Station looks bigger after being away for a little while. There's a couple new slips you can pick out, apparently suited for human ships, as well as what appears to be an extensive complex anchored to one of the asteroids nearby. Some kind of facility for the humans, perhaps, though from the amount of drone activity around it you can only assume it isn't complete yet. Speaking of activity, the attendant repair slips are alive with ships, and the amount of drones around the munitions manufacturing area makes it look like some kind of hive. What's going on?

Unfortunately, you have to wait a while to find out. There are several Knight-brothers close to Bastion that are refueling and rearming, so it seems you're at the end of the queue when it comes to talking with the Abbot. Instead you send off your report, and see about getting resupplied. In the meantime, you strike up a conversation with one of the other Knight-brothers who aren't in a briefing, and learn that new new 'Paladins' from the Order of Tyr's Star have arrived, along with reinforcements from Olympus.

Eventually you get through to the Abbot. "Good job on the mission. You did what you could, I'm sure. But we don't have time to discuss anything. A few days ago, Rubin's battlegroup was jumped by Legion forces and overrun. We only know from the courier drones he sent off shortly before he was lost. Data's sketchy, but it looks like they purposefully captured his flagship. I'm mobilising everyone we've got in order to try and find him."

"What do you want me to do?" You ask.

"At the minute? You'll be patrolling Bastion while your ships are repaired so I can free up another Knight-brother. Oh, and Flavius has sent a shard along to set up some more docking slips with the latest convoy. Apparently it has a message of some kind for you."

"I... see."

"Any questions? I need to get on with debriefing the humans as well, and they're so slow."

>Ask Darius something (write-in).
>Request to sit in on the debriefing.
>Sign off and see what Flavius' shard wants.

>>2355246
>>Sign off and see what Flavius' shard wants.

>>2355246
>>Sign off and see what Flavius' shard wants.

>>2355246

PSA: Pixel's internet is kill; quest will resume whenever it's back up again. Please watch Twitter for announcements.

>>2355246
>>Sign off and see what Flavius' shard wants.

>Inform him the fighters were targeting our battlecruiser, it seems the enemy has some way to Id us and is hunting cores.

>>2355246
>Rubin's battlegroup was jumped
Well we gotta go return the favor.

Rolled 30, 92, 19 = 141 (3d100)

Testing

>>2355573
This.