Velikar scowled as the shrinking Captain Nymosto of the Bleeding Wound, the Fettered Star which was part of his anti-magic strike ships. Not the senior commander, even, but the nominal second-in-command, who had seen to correct his commander's orders.

This was something the Aotrs did not come down as hard on under normal circumstances (history showed what happened when commanding officers belived themselves infallible) but Nymosto had managed an instance of not only completely failing to understand his orders, but to insist to Captain Vreataiik of the [i]Liche's Wrath[/i] [i]Foul Anger[/i] that Nymosot's "interpretation" was right.

It was an unfortunate instance. With the time constraints, Velinkar had elected to pick the commanders of ships who had the most technical skill. Vreataiik was a genius in most respects, but he was a better mad scientist than a commander (though he was quite capble in the latter role) but if he occasionally had a short coming, it was second-guessing himself. Nymosto, on the other hand, equally a capable engineer-captain, was abrasive and forthright. Again, not enough to typically get himself in trouble... But in this circumstance, it was a case of one rolling up at the exact time the other rolled down.

Result?

Instead of using the anti-magic-gear equipped strike vessels to conduct a decapitating strike on the target command vessel, Nymosto had gotten it into his head to deposit a boarding party as a hit-and-fade, instead of just blasting the ship apart with one. With the loss of that whole party - AND valuable anti-magic personnel gear AND worse, very likely, the loss of surprise of the tactic entirely.

Velinkar was not pleased.

Nymosto knew he had fumbled. Having originated from the British Stellar Empire, as the lich stared back as his boss, the only thing that came to mind was a exchange about an old Earth general, after the subordinate officer failed; a comrade has asked afterwards what the general had said. The officer had replied "nothing, by god, it was far too serious for that."

Velinkar broke the comms channel without saying a word.

Nymosto had not soiled himself for 156 years, since before he could walk, but suddenly he recalled the feeling with eeriy clarity.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

The engineering teams began frantic work on the temple's destruction preparations. One team, however, was working hard on establishing a local planetary shield. While they had some power sources, this team was focussing on attempting to jury-rig a conversion to draw some of the power from the temple itself to fully establish the shield. The shield, typical of its kind, was designed soley to protect the ground force from orbital bombardment. Such shields didn't - and couldn't - touch the ground, not least because there was never an even, safe surface on a planet with which to attempt to make a hemisphere, save perhaps on the largest of spaceport landing fields, the sort some miles across. So, by nature, as it started some distance off the ground, it could not stop ground forces or low-flying craft from getting in. While a starship might have the accruacy to put a shot through the gap, the incredibly shallow angle required meant that, realistically, it was never possible to do so because of the intervening terrain.

[D100 competance roll for engineering team: 91]

The rest of the forces were either rapidly positioning for defence or securing capture Azrua materiél (with a particular eye to rigging the captured munitions in creatively destructive ways).

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Velikar quickly began to adapt the fleet. 

First, he deployed a force (he labbeled it Task Force Arrow) which was heavy on warheads and railguns (comparitively, missiles were among the Aotrs' primary weapons after all), with the bulk of the available Bloody Steels and Sorrow Skeans. This task group was to stand off and start firing at the Azura ground forces deployed in positions away from the War Droid and Temple combat zones. The sustained barrage - since the Aotrs had been husbanding their expendables - was intended less to deal damage to those forces, but for force the Generous Knight (once identified by Boldness) to have to commit one of her task forces to simply protecting those forces or have them destroyed.

Second, he prepared the remainder of ships forces into two strike fleets -Task Force Spear (his commanded) and Vice-Admiral Spawn's Task Force Sword, to engage the other two fleets. As this was, essentially, the final roll of the dice, he committed his reserves, leaving only the resting/maintenace cycle third of the fleet safely ensconced outside the system.

The third part... well, that wasn't an order.

"Lord Foul Skream," he said respectively the the other, aboard the Doomskrieg. "I request you bring in your task force in concert with our strikes."

Foul Skream's eyeglows lightened in the lich equivalent of a tight smaile. "In order to present the Azura with a third target, including the largest vessel they have seen, which is towing something spewing an enormous maount of power. You want me to be bait." Velinkar would have been more unerved, except that Lord Foul Skream just sounded amused.

"I... Wouldn't put it quite that way my Lord but..." He paused momentarily. "Well, actually milord, no, that is basically what I'm asking yes."

"Never fear, Admiral, I think we can handle outselves." The [i]Doomskreig [/i]itself WAS a supercruiser, even if it was a generation behind. No, the big risk was exposing the Spacial Splinter Cannon's battery array itself, even though it was quite well shielded, it was still not combat vessel and towing what was essentially a mid-sized starbase full or power cores put a dampner on even a Supercruiser's already limited mobility. 

And Foul Skream was the best engineer the Aotrs had, nevermind Lord Death Despoil's personal aide for nearly three millenia. The Furnace Knight might have Foul Skream beaten in a straight fight, but in logisitics and science, Foul Skream had him cold.

The issue was, of course, they didn't really want to have to fire the Spacial Splinter Cannon at Tanshin (i.e. the star) to cause it to not exist while they were anywhere near it, since there was no precise telling how quickly the Laws-of-Physics-Just-Stopped-Happening area could go or how fast. Even a supernova couldn't travel faster than light and the explosion tended to travel a fair bit slower... but a lightspeed propogation only gave the about eight minutes to Tanshin II, being of course, squarely an HPE-L and thus having an approximately 1 AU - or eight light-minute - orbital radius. Even double ot triple that time was cutting it a bit close when ground forces were around, especially since they needed to keep the Azura from likewise escaping...

"We await your signal, Admiral," Foul Skream said.

Lord Foul Skream and the Doomskrieg escort fleet would be Task Force Bullet. (Velinkar was not feeling the time to be fancy.)

Velikar's group (Task Force Spear), the largest of the two, would be making a hopefully killing stroke on his target. Sword would attack the other group, and primarily attempt to hold it in place. A similar sort of role as Task Force Arrow, but one that involved mixing it in with the Azura fleet directly on roughly even odds.

Finally, Velinkar assigned the anti-magic strike fleet - Task Force Dagger - with a new job. He did not make any comments aboutr "getting it right this time" as he outlined calmly to Captain Vreataiik the new orders. A hit-and-fade strike, this time to directly attack (the words "with starships" were said with no emphasis, but none was needed; only one of Vreataiik's bridge crew flinched slightly) the Azura's reserve forces, with the aim of damaging and destroying the accelerator rings themselves. Velinkar did not state their were to be no heroics, but he didn't need to. Both Vreataiik and Nymosto knew the difference between a mistake and an error and that recklessly sacrificing to regain face was definitely make the former into the latter.



A few short minutes later, the 8th fleet was ready.

"Admiral Velinkar to Task Forces Spear, Sword, Arrow, Bullet and Dagger:

"Begin the attack."