I was going to post the major revision of the crossing that i have been working on but it looks like the boss has put bits and pieces of it out here already. I will post the entire re-write to day and that way you can get a feel for what Corsair and I are trying to do......
As the Gamma wave slice through the darkness of space, already warned by the signals that the picket ships had sent out. What the 12th did not know was that even though the main gamma wave had not reached them at the time of the jump, the leading edge was actually several thousand kilometers in advance of the main destructive wave.
It was those gamma ray bands that caused the 12th to miss jump. When the gamma rays interacted with the ships KF drives it caused many of the ships to have what is classified as a hyper jump. A hyper jump not only bends the fabric of space but it can also bend time and some say reality.
With the picket ships warning still clear in every ones mind the remaining ships of the fleet were all beginning to preparing to make emergency jumps to a pre selected location, according to emergency protocol plan Bravo-Six by the order of Admiral Travis, it was one of the many contingency plans all fleets have and use in just this type of case.
When the emergency jump signal was sent out and the different groups of ships began following the protocols for an emergency jump set down by the star league. All ships had several programmed jump settings fixed into their navigational computers. One of the biggest problems with fleets making an emergency jump is that when large groups of ships do it the navigational computers try to adjust for all the other ships KF signatures causing ships to jump farther and farther apart, a fleet can end up being scatter over a much wider area.
When the different squadrons of the fleet began jumping they were following the Bravo-Six protocol as ordered by the fleets overall commander. Emergency protocols work on a simple formula, depending on which one that was selected, the protocol takes the ships current coordinates from the navigational computer, it then figures in both a preset direction and distance, that distance can be anything from 1 light year to 30 light years.
The separate parts of the fleet would then jump to different points in the new location, the fleet would reassemble in the new location once the recall signal was sent out, what no one knew was that when all the ships began their jump sequences, was that they were already in the gamma waves leading edge and that belt of energy added in with the ships own energy field it would cause every ship in the fleet that made the jump to do a hyper miss-jump, multiplying the distances jumped by a factor of up to ten in some cases.
Because of this the fleet was scattered over tens of thousand kilometers as it jumped in to its new location, most vessels jumped in close to their respective relocation spots, but several portions of the fleet did not. When the recall signal was sent out a lot of ships did not acknowledge the signal with any kind of answer it was hoped that they made it and were just out of the 60 light year ranges of interstellar communication of the day.
Admiral Travis had the recall code for the 12th transmitted, squadrons and demi fleets started to drift in over several week, those portions of the fleet that had been farthest out did not get there for almost two months. Most of the fleet had responded and regrouped, but once the stragglers had finished drifting in it became apparent that one portion of the fleet that had not regrouped, that information was brought to Admiral Travis' attention.
As the different sub fleets began to checked in with both damage reports and missing ships, Fleet Admiral Travis was concerned as he had not gotten a recall reply from more than two dozen individual ships, not to mention the entire Task Force Furious battle group. The loss of Task Force Furious was was a major concern to him due to both it being a sizable portion of the battle fleet and the fact that his wife commanded it, later it was also learned that several of the independent marine brigades and their escorts were a major portion of the two dozen ships that had not answered the recall.
It was decided that each of the sub fleets would detach several of its escort ships to form search patrols. Those patrols would move out in a sweeping arc in an effort to contact Task Force Furious or the Marine Brigades, in case they were out beyond normal communications range, they would be also be searching for signs of ship wreckage or escape pods.
During those many sweeps by the escorts of the fleet, that two stellar clusters were found, one was to the far left of the assembled fleet about 85 light years away, In time it would be learned that it was known as the Volaran Cluster by those that were from there. On the right of the assembled fleet was a second larger and more densely tightly packed stellar formation about 125 light years away known as the Ghost Region, this would be learned from a captured pirate jumpship that stumbled in to the escorts of one of the family fleets.
The Ghost Region was home to mostly pirates and mining colonies, most of the support fleet and the entire combined family fleets was on the farthest fringe of the assembly area. After learning of the possibility of pirates, Fleet Admiral Travis ordered the 2nd and 3rd Marine Divisions transport groups to move towards the area of the Combined Family and support Fleets so that they had additional protection besides just their own escorts, they would also begin to investigate the stellar cluster that they were going to be close to them.
As the marine transports moved in closer to the stellar cluster its escorts moved forward to investigate the fringes of the Ghost Region. The pirates told them that in several locations within the region there are both small and large clusters of habitable planets. But most of the region is totally unexplored due to the fact that the many of the gas giants are unstable and passing to close to their gravitational fields can destroy the integrity of a ships drive.
Most of the habitable fringe planets were either the home of colonies of miners or pirates, some of these enclaves were the worst of the worst that were sent there as members of penal mining institutions that were either purposely forgotten or just abandoned and now taken over by who knows who.
Admiral Travis sent several small groups of escorts towards the Volaran Cluster to gather intelligence, the escorts moved forward until they were in extreme long range sensor range for the destroyers. All the data they gathered was relayed back to fleets information center aboard the Admiral's command ship. The main battle fleet along with the transport ships of the 1st Marine Division moved forward towards the listening destroyers with extreme caution.
Along the way Admiral Travis had his staff looking over every little detail of information that the destroyers were relaying back. After weeks of long range reconnaissance the Admiral had several of the destroyers fan out as they move forward, it was time to see if they could pick up any, more detailed information about the cluster.
The Admiral would leave squadrons at different jump points so that they could act as relays between fleets at the Ghost Region, the Voloran Cluster and the Admiral's command ship. What no one in the main battle fleet knew was that at the same time all this was happening Task Force Furious was picking up stragglers and approaching the Volaran Region from the opposite side. The Volaran Region and its inhabitants would be the first new people that the 12th would meet in this strange new sector of space.
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Rear Admiral James Gregory sat looking over the readiness reports at his desk aboard the Olympus Heavy Cruiser that was now the flagship of what had become known as Task Force Savage as they trailed behind Task Force Furious, a much larger battle group that they had stumbled upon.
The Savage Task Force was not some big well known or famous battle group, under most normal circumstances it would probably never even been formed, you see the truth of the matter was that Task Force Savage had actually been four separate smaller flotillas that had linked up to provide mutual protection to each other after making the scramble during the emergency jump.
The remnants of the 698th Cruiser Squadron under the command of Rear Admiral James Gregory consisted of a heavy cruiser and two light cruisers, where the carrier/destroyer was no one knew, both of the squadrons AAA cruisers had been destroyed in a massive implosion caused by them trying to make the emergency jump while being to close to each other, the first ship that the remaining 698th ships made contact with was a fleet tender and its two escort frigates.
Weeks later Gregory's now adhoc Cruiser Squadron came across the first of the two small flotillas of ships each turned out to be Marine Expeditionary Assault Brigades, the first was of three ships and was jointly commanded by Commodore Harold Elliot and Brigadier Hannibal Mathis, it consisted of a troop cruiser, an escort carrier and a frigate.
Several days later after meeting up with the first Marine Expeditionary Assault Brigade they stumbled in to a second Marine Expeditionary Assault Brigade it had six ships and was jointly commanded by Commodore Marcus Drummond and Brigadier Veronica Carver, it consisted of a troop cruiser, an escort carrier, a light cruiser and three frigates.
At the very next stop to recharge the jump drives Rear Admiral Gregory got all the senior commanding officers and the captains of the different ships together to discuss what their next step would be. At the same time he also realigned some of the ships that had been brought together. It was decided that the different squadrons and flotillas would form Task Force Savage and that they would continue to move head cautiously and if they encountered any problems the cruisers and frigates would deploy forward, while the carriers fighters would provide overall aerospace security.
Rear Admiral Gregory appointed Brigadier Hannibal Mathis as his second in command as he was the senior of the two Marine commanders and all of the ships captains, Commodore Marcus Drummond would be third in line if something should happen to either of the other two. It was about a month after that meeting that Task Force Savage encountered Task Force Furious. Rear Admiral Gregory and Brigadier Mathis shuttled over to conferred with Vice Admiral Hinata Yamamoto Travis the commander of Task Force Furious.
After the meeting Rear Admiral Gregory informed Task Force Savage that they would follow behind Task Force Furious by 100 kilometers, that way it would give Task Force Furious room to maneuver but still be close enough to provide supporting fire and cover its flanks. To do this Gregory rearranged Task Force Savage, he made a left and right flanking force each consisting of a light cruiser, carrier and two frigates. He left the heavy cruiser, the two troop cruisers and the fleet tender in the center to support where needed and created a rear guard force consisting of a light cruiser and two frigates.
The combined Task Forces moved slowly forward, it was several weeks later that they approached a stellar cluster that came to be known as the Volaran Cluster. The Task Forces approached the Volaran Cluster from its lower anti spin-ward side and with extreme caution letting the escort ships use their long range sensors to pick up any and all information they could about the cluster.
If it was at all possible they did not want the clusters inhabitants to know they were there or to start an incident that would cause the combined Task Forces to have to use any portion of its military forces.
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Unknown to anyone in the 12th was that for all their caution they had already been spotted weeks before by pirate ships that had been recharging in the shadow of one of the asteroid fields while the 12th had been conducting searches for wreckage and debris.
The ships had heard the coded recall message and copied it, it would forwarded to the Volaran Cluster when the ships got closer. It was unclear to the recharging ships just who it was out there but then again with the struggle going on between the Volaran Colonists and Outcast Red Theocracy Colonists for control of the entire cluster, either side could have called for help.
The Volaran's thought that even though Red Theocracy colonist were outcasts that the 12th was some form of help from the hard line Red Theocracy Faction. At the same time the Red Theocracy colonist thought that the ships were there to support the Volaran colonists.
Both groups of colonist had no idea that the few ships they had been told about was actually just scouts and pickets for a fleet that was far more massive in firepower than anything any faction in the realms had ever imagined.
Most factions at the time only had a score or two of actual warships, they were used to hold off the enemies warships and guard the jumpships that carried the ground forces that were the primary source of a factions military might.
Colonist normally had no actual warships if they did it was so out dated it was laughable, most times the jumpships that they used were barely space worthy. So even the screening ships of the 12th were a major threat to most of the outlying colonies. Both side of the conflict were worried since they had contested with each other for almost five years for control of the primary planet of the sector.
Of the three habitable planets within the cluster two were dry mostly arid worlds while the third was the most habitable with large expanses of forests and great bodies of water, it was also the one that was at the center of the conflict and where the forces of the two sides seemed to contended with each other.
While the two colonies fought with against other, pirates and raiders from the Ghost Region were making a fortune selling their stolen implements of war that they acquired to both sides and kept the fighting going. Normally the pirates and raiders were the scourge of the void but now they were in trouble.
The pirates and raiders might think about jumping a lone jumpship or even a small convoy out in the voids but now they had actual warships to contend with. They had lost several jumpships and their accompanying dropships to these unknown vessels.
Worst yet these newcomers were not afraid of moving into the Ghost Region in search of the pirates and their bases and anchorages.
With the arrival of the 12th in the void between the Volaran Cluster and the Ghost Region and the loss of both jumpships and dropships, the pirates that had been close to the Volaran Cluster decided it was time to side with only one of the colonist factions.
The pirate chose the Red Theocracy Outcasts only because they figured that is who the warships belonged to. The priests of the Red Theocracy were all about control and even though the colonist were so called outcasts the Theocracy was not above sending warships to re-establish control over what they considered wayward citizens.
As the pirates setup bases on the arid world controlled by the Outcasts, the fighters of the pirates would turn the balance in favor of the outcasts, showing the Red Theocracy that they could be useful to them. The pirates also kept an eye on the warships in the void, what they did not know was that Task Force Furious was in the void on the other side of the Volaran Cluster and slowly making it way around.
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Task Force Furious moved in a counter clockwise arc along the spin-ward edge of the Volaran Cluster, it was the leading escort destroyer from Task Force Furious that stumbled between two of the destroyers on picket duty from the main battle fleet. It was a tense few moments before IFF signals registered on all three of the ships.
Admiral Travis was in the process of reviewing all the information that the pickets had collected, when word was relayed back to the main fleet that Task Force Furious and the ships of the adhoc Task Force Savage had re-established contact, Admiral Travis breathed a twofold sigh of relief.
While most of the ships of the main fleet kept their current positions the Admiral's flag ship jumped forward placing itself in a position out of sensor range of the cluster but within jump range for Task Force Furious. I was several hours later that the combined ships of the two Task Forces arrived and deployed their jump sails.
Data feeds were sent to the flag ship with all the collected information that had been acquired by Task Force Furious as they had traveled around the exterior of the Volaran Cluster. The assembled advisers of Admiral Travis agreed that if the flow of arms was cut off from both colonies and the pirates were removed the conflict would end itself in time.
They also agreed that if the 12th kept a military presence in the area the pirates would avoid the area if for no other reason that self preservation. The assembled advisers gave the Admiral several options to decide from. All the options for the cluster included wiping out the pirate influence.
The Admiral decided to not take any direct military action against either of the colonies, if it was still needed at a later date then it could be used. Task Force Savage would be on station half a jump outside the Volaran Cluster, it job was to wipe out the pirates where they were found in the cluster.
Task Force Furious would be two jumps further out into the void from the cluster and provide a heavy backup in the area should the need arise. The Family and Primary Support Fleets would be centrally located in the void between the Volaran Cluster and the Ghost Region, giving logistical and maintenance support to whom ever needed it from the 12th.
Between the Primary Support area and the Main 12th fleet would be the Tactical Operation Group Rolling Thunder, the fast ships of the TOG would be able to chase down any pirates or raiders that wandered into the void.
The Main Battle Fleet along with the Marine Transport Group would strike into the Ghost Region, the Admiral had decided that once the Region had been secured that 12th would use it as a secure base of operations, hopefully even being able to incorporate the most agreeable denzies of the Ghost Region into the 12th.
