"Right," Velinkar said. "I thought that might be the case, but-"

The comm system on his scanner peeped. "Vivisector to Velinkar." Vivisector's tone was brusque, which suggested this was important enough the general didn't have time to wait on nicities.

"Here," Velinkar responded shortly. That Vivisector had not apologised for interrupting spoke volumes.

"Short, short version; the planet is home to a second group of hostiles, the Tides, enemies of the Azura, who were responsible for shooting down our first sorty. My scouts killed their local commander which means we have a window for air support, and we could really use some reinforcements ASAP, enemy inbound, jamming in progress; data attached."

Velinkar, ignoring Boldness for a moment, grabbed his scanner to see the information being relayed (via the ship's system). He absently noted that the point of transmission was tens of miles from the base, which indicated that Vivisector must have opened and gone through a [i]Gate[/i] presumably to get outside of the jamming field. ([i]Gate XV[/i], a small part of his mind abscently noted, most likely, given it was the lowest level which would do th distance and have a small enough compression factor Vivisector could do it at a run - [i]Gate X[/i] had the range, but it would take too long at about fifteen metre per mile to sprint down...)

"Acknowledged," he responded, thinking fast. "Two Murders will be inbound in five minutes."

"Acknowledged; out." 

Velinkar gave immediate orders. Two Murders on the LSS [i]Dying Gasp[/i] were already primed, and within four minutes and twenty-five seconds, they were loaded with War Droids and Enragers, prepped for a combat drop. He had momentarily considered and discarded asking Boldness if she would accompany them with the Murder he'd prepped for her.) The necessity of time and function restricted the load of troops to what could quickly march on board, as the precious minutes were not available to stack the droids in the de-activated position - but it was still a substantial force. Velinkar had also scrambled two squadrons of Craters. The Murders and Craters were to perform a Gate jump and then split, with the Murders rushing down to the besieged facility (hopefully before the serious shooting started). The Craters, meanwhile, were to conduct an airstrike on the enemy ground force (or accompanying flying support) and do as much damage as possible before retreating back. The Murders had been told they would likely need to stay on station, as Velinkar felt it unlikely they would have time to safely get the robots off and be able to retreat. If they had time, Velinkar knew from decades of workign with Vivisector that the general would find plenty of uses for the Murder's energy beam turrets. 

He was writing off all the mechanical troops, but that was what they existed for. If the Aotrs could retain them, all to the good; but if not, they were fundamentally disposable assets.



"Sorry," he said finally returning his attention to Boldness. "right..."


*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

The Aotrs negotiators opened communication to the biomancers, making a counter offer. An opporuntiy had arisen: the Aotrs wished to use their enormous skills to deal a blow to some uppity Strayvian pirates. The location of a major Strayvian military base was provided in full detail (in Velinkar's opinion, this was not remotelt what you'd expect from pirates, but the Azura seemed to have a funny way of looking at things), which needed to be conducted as soon as possible.

In additional to a substantial recompense in resources, the Aotrs were prepared to return the favour with a the deployment of a task fleet (Veliknar limited it to a reinforced attack fleet of around thirty ships) to make a strike at an (Azura or Tide) target of the biomancer's choice, to be determined once the current situation and Tanshin had been resolved.




Velinkar sat back - now it was just a case of waiting; to learn the results of the ground attack, the biomancer's response... And when his chosen strike force was fitted with the anti-magic gear...