Unholy Star, Beyond Faith

The Mists of Geolan - Part 3

[On the Duilleag, Akira class Star wing carrier, Skyean Kingdom]

The harsh sunlight that escaped from the halo around the planet Geolan was so intense that it even reflected off the stiff, navy blue material of Captain Vulpini's uniform, the golden symbol of her druidic rank stuck into the lapel of her jacket shone brightly. Standing on her command disc in space, she zoomed the small platform out to inspect the whole fleet; at the current viewport, the scale of each vessel was too small to see with the naked eye, so the ships were represented by three-dimensional, high-res models that were much bigger than actual size. The Kingdom's ships dominated the scene and were outlined by a soft blue glow, the enemy vessels, on the other hand, were only three in number and sat in a fixed position over the planet. They were rendered as red models in the same form as the black, crystal shaped Death Squad cruisers they represented, and were surrounded by four of her Skyean Destroyers. Sixty-six small attack fighters sat off to the side organised into three groups. Well out of planetary space and away from any possible direct battle sat the mighty Duilleag, the obelisk-shaped carrier supported by a rear guard of three additional destroyers.

All ships stood ready for her next command. It should be easy, she thought, three against my whole fleet. But wielding such an overpowering force into battle always made her uneasy, and, Adding to her caution, was the fact that they were facing the Church's dreaded Death Squad, a foe equal in every way to any other elite force in the Galaxy and one that she never thought she would ever face directly. She zoomed back down to center her view on the three enemy crystal class cruisers; they floated upright, waiting in a tight formation. No extended arrays would typically mean that the ships were not battle ready, but for this opponent, this was not an assumption to make lightly.

She threw an opcode to the captains of her sleek, slightly tapered cylinder-shaped destroyers to open their attack arrays and studied the opponent's force for any reaction--she was hoping for a shift in position or the deployment of arrays, anything that would indicate their intention. As the surrounding ships each raised two massive arm arrays from their hulls, there was no response from the enemy--no movement at all.

Damn, the Captain swore under her breath. There was one more thing she needed to do before she engaged. They had to be sure that the members of Death Squad Eight were on the ground. It would make a big difference to how she dealt with the three crystal class cruisers if they were manned with skeleton crews rather than Captained full compliments. But, just as she was about to raise a request to Gulo, the Colonel had sent her a thread request, and it was marked URGENT. She accepted, and the figure of Gulo appeared next to her on the disc. "Gulo. Report."

The royal marine Colonel stood in their light battle armour with helmet held under their right arm; their black fringe fell forward over one eye. Gulo wiped back the stray hair. "Captain, we've been tricked! There are no death squad combatants on the ground, and the planet is in passive rebellion."

"Passive rebellion?"

"They're not fighting, but they've worked with the death dealers to decieve us."

Vulpini had clenched her fists and locked her jaw tight in anger and frustration; the feeling of being fooled was not something she was used to. It took a moment for her to reply, "It is as I feared, although I have to admit too late."

"It gets worse," the marine's leader continued, "Geolan's processor wasn't destroyed. It's online and is being used to target their planetary defence system at our destroyers. I've been directed to report by their spokesperson, one Churchman Avan that if we attack the death squad cruisers, they will respond with force."

On the face of it, four destroyers against the defences of a whole planet would seem overwhelming odds against them. But this planet was a small outlier and likely not equipped to handle a conventional force. But add the fully manned crystal cruisers, and they may experice a significant resistance. She considered a quick assault, but in the time it would take for the planet to respond they would likely only be able to to take out one of the cruisers and that was provided they didn't deploy defencive tactics. No, she thought, there was another aspect to all of this that was missing--there had to be another piece to this puzzle.