Play date: February 25, 2018
In-game date: April 20 EY219
Location: In the slide points
Previous events: Convincing the Aerikin to help in the fight against the D'vor
In the slide points, Jillian works out the route to take. Normally there wouldn't be a direct path to Aiscapo -- they'd have to travel to iLanga or Crapworld -- but if Jillian has interpreted the formulae she got from Sunshine properly they can travel directly to their final destination. She thinks she's right, but she won't really know until they leave the slide point. Her previous calculations were for an exit that they were going to exit at anyway, or at least she believes so. She's not sure what happens to one's default exit when one takes a detour to the planet in the slide points. She could probably work that out later, though!
While they travel, Olivia has a less intellectual experiment in mind. Since she and Malcolm are on the same ship and he's not flying, why not try sex in the slide points? The disorienting aspect here might make things more fun or they might make things nauseating. As it turns out, although he enjoys it Malcolm doesn't feel like it's really much different while Olivia finds it great. It's only a sample size of one for them, but she wants to run more experiments in the future.
The ship does come out where intended, at the lower slide point in Aiscapo, where the Iof should be. The Grobs are there and their ship is indeed in very bad shape with lots of holes from projectile weapons along its hull. Communications are struck up, the Grob are convinced that this new ship is friendly, and soon an umbilical connects the two.
On the Iof things are indeed grim. Both Fos and Vob were killed in the fight with the Daebak and Songed Grob ships. The loss of Vob is especially hard for the Steel Hummingbird's crew; Vob was the first Grob to fly with them and learned some human language. All of the Iof's crew are injured to varying extents, and even Seo Yee has suffered a grievous head wound. With the loss of their two medics no one's been treated for their major wounds.
Bishop uses the Iof's med bay equipment to patch up the crew and also uses some of it to start up colonies for his own wrecked med bay -- it's a good thing that the Grob use the same sort of slug-based medicine that he does. Jillian asks if there's anything they can do for the dead but the Grob have already performed their rituals.
While Bishop carries out his medic duties the Aerikin examine the D'vor technology on the Iof and introduce themselves to the Grob. The Aerikin's computer handles the translation but it doesn't help the Grob's opinion of the Aerikin, whom they see as arrogant. They're right, of course, but it doesn't help that this new species seems more interested in their technology than it is with first contact. The Aerikin, on the other hand, find the Grob fine but don't seem to want to become besties either. They are currently interested in the D'vor technology and admit that it's on par with theirs. This is going to be a tricky fight.
While everyone else is being social Malcolm listens in on the military communication channels to see what's going on and finds that it's all in code, and code that he can't translate. There is a lot of chatter going on, though.
When Jillian pulls herself away from the Grob's misery she takes some time to do a long-range scan of the ships in the small system of Aiscapo. She finds that the D'vor-controlled fleet has bunched up and is making a run at Daebak. This does make sense, as they've lost the resources that would let them fight a drawn-out war. Waiting will just weaken them further. Daebak's military is likewise clustered into a single fleet and moving to intercept.
The sides are as follows:
Daebak has a fleet consisting of a small carrier, two medium cruisers, four destroyers, four frigates, two corvettes, and two refuelling ships -- some have been damaged but nothing too badly. It's joined by the frigate Crocodile and submarine Cobra from Piccadilly, the jump-capable Gurg and its escort the Carcharon. The Iof is around, but too badly damaged to keep fighting.
Iof - badly damaged
Gurg and Carcharon
one small carrier (Damche)
two medium cruisers (Sejong and Yulgok)
four destroyers (Gangwon, Eulji, Mundeok, Manchun)
five frigates (Jeju, Jeonnam, Daegu, Chungbuk, and Crocodile)
two corvettes (Paleun, Palli)
one submarine (Cobra)
two refuelling ships (Tong 1 and Tong 2)
The D'vor-converted Juche forces have one heavy and one light cruiser, three destroyers, one frigate, five corvettes, and two submarines (really stealth ships, but the name has stuck from the old seafaring days), some badly damaged. From Vishnu they have one destroyer and one medium cruiser. Two Grob ships and the cloud-surrounded alien ship are also in the system.
two Grob ships
one large strange skeletal alien ship
one heavy cruiser (Cheonan)
one medium cruiser (Khan)
one light cruiser (Guanggaeto)
four destroyers (Incheon, Gyeonggi, Jeonbuk, and Nehru)
one frigate (Kyeongbuk)
five corvettes (Jinju, Soho, Najin, Nampo, and Sariwon)
two submarines (Sinpo and Yono)
While Daebak hasn't lost any ships, the D'vor have lost two frigates, two corvettes, one Grob ship, their refuelling ship, and all three D'vor ships. The D'vor are in a slightly worse position just from counting ships, and the new arrival of the Aerikin, Steel Hummingbird, and Resplendent Dragon won't help them at all.
Jillian and her crew understand that the war will likely be won by the Daebak forces as is, but there is still the opportunity for the D'vor to cause a lot of damage here and the two Grob ships makes for an opportunity to save some of the only Grob left in the universe. If their ships can be disabled there is the chance that they can be boarded and their crew can be saved from the Song...
There is time to fly down and intercept the D'vor ships before the fleets intercept each other if they push their engines, and everyone decides to do this. The battered Steel Hummingbird is left near the slide point, attached to the Iof by an umbilical. Ghost, Sheema, and Whang are left behind but Azar's got enough combat skills to be useful if there's boarding to be done (or fought off!), so she's brought along.
As the dropship, mothership, and Dragon fly down Malcolm contacts the military and uses their code phrases to establish who he is and their rough plan. The military is happy to have more ships show up on their side and assume that the strange jumping ships that have been helping out are thanks to the Hummingbird. It's not totally true, but Malcolm doesn't correct them.
The Gurg is also contacted when they spot it on their long-range scans, both to say hello and to ensure that, like the military, the Black Rose ship won't assume the Aerikin ships are D'vor and attack them.
The dropship is slightly faster than the others and will therefore be able to engage first. It's still over a day of flying to get there at full burn, so plans are drawn up on the way. With three ships coming from above the orbital plane they can work on luring the D'vor fleet into a position that's to their advantage. The dropship will engage the Grob ships and disable them; when the two other ships arrive the Dragon will destroy the Nehru, as they've been wanting to for revenge over Labrys City, while the Aerikin mothership will try to take out the skeletal alien ship. Everyone takes some time to get a better feel for the dropship's controls. Bishop is relieved to find that the computer can do a lot to help him aim the weapon systems and that they're more like cannons than beam weapons despite firing plasma.
Twenty-eight hours later the first stage of their plan comes together well: the two Grob ships, who are the closest ships, are dispatched to engage the dropship while the rest of the fleet continues, unable to come back to help during the brief duration of a dogfight. Everyone knows that the Grob are better combatants than the average human navy and have more advanced technology as well, and actually fighting them is tricky. Jillian's unable to get decent sensor locks on the Grob, while Volkova finds that being unable to productively use her Khnuta on the touchscreen displays means that the engines and shields can't be pushed to their limits in the heat of battle. Malcolm has to do some fancy flying to keep his new ship from getting punctured: the Grob ships are fast, nimble, tough, and have both projectile weapons and what seems to be microwave bursts designed to fry electronics.
Everyone manages to keep it together but it takes all their skill and nerve to come out on top. The shields and armour plating on the dropship holds up well and her weapons are truly terrifying: Bishop finds the targeting system to be a huge help and being able to focus all the weapons on a single point means that he's able to punch through the space drives on the Grob ships. When the fight is over the Grob ships are both disabled and their crew, as far as anyone can tell, are alive.
What now? Both of the Grob ships have been abandoned by the D'vor fleet, which accepts its losses and tightens up, continuing to close with the Daebak ships. The Hummingbird's crew is unable to board the disabled ships and incapacitate the crews in a nonlethal way. The Aerikin weapons fire plasma that melts what it hits into slag, so they don't have to worry about the Grob repairing their ships -- there's effectively no space drive on them to repair. In the end they decide that it's best to just leave the ships in their helpless state and deal with them when the war here is won. These ships should have lots of life support and the crew should be fine. To make sure that they're truly helpless Bishop shoots off their weapons.
While the dropship is occupied discussing this they suddenly come under surprise attack! Missiles come at them from an unnoticed human stealth ship while the dropship is barely moving -- it seems that the D'vor fleet isn't as unconcerned by losing two ships as everyone thought! Malcolm somehow manages to wriggle his ship out from certain death only to find that the missiles are of the hated homing variety. The two ships frantically maneuver and engage with Malcolm hugging the stealth ship while having to dodge an ever-growing number of missiles until Bishop spots an opening and hits the stealth ship, taking out its space drive as well: once a stealth ship's element of surprise is lost it's at a definite disadvantage and they're not known for being able to take a hit.
With three disabled ships the dropship decides that it's best to nudge them up out of the orbital plane. Not fast enough that it won't be trivial to catch up with them, but enough to keep them out of harm's way.
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 1 (running total: 37)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 5.5)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 1, psychedelic (running total: 17)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 7)