Whoami — Roleplayer Guild

"Is everything secure?"

"Yes, sergeant. We can take on three more crates of supplies before we reach out limit."

"Gotcha. Hurry it up, marines. Time isn't exactly on our side with this."

Hark looked over the windy dunes of Jehan's moon and watched as transport buggies raced back and forth between the transports and the supply warehouse buried in the sand. They had happened across it during their scouting operations. The facility was defunct and the upper echelon on Jehan deemed the recovery of the base's supplies to be too costly. As it turns out, the winds uncovered the base as much as it had covered before. The Lincoln's marine detachment on the moon saw it as a great opportunity to resupply their mothership.

The next buggy arrived with four crates maglevved behind it. Hark stepped down the ramp of the transport ship and called out to the marine, "This one can take three more. Transport two is on its way down from orbit."

The marine nodded and was joined by the transport's crew to load the supplies. Unlike the dropships that had gotten the marine detachment to the surface, the cargo transports were large and heavy enough to withstand the high winds of the moon. They flew through the gusts and landed without any issues. Hark stepped up to the transport's pilot, "Think your ship can lift that weight into orbit?"

Th pilot chuckled and nodded, "This is nothing for the ol' girl. It's built to carry wrecked MAS units and other things that are significantly heavier than cargo crates." He pulled out his holopad and looked it over, "We're capped at physical capacity but the tonnage isn't even fifty percent of what we can haul."

"Excellent." Hark said before looking up to the Lincoln. From his perspective, the Lincoln was just a large silhouette beyond clouds and gusting sand. He saw the two wounded Gemini cruisers attached to the Lincoln's hull. They appeared as engine nacelles sticking out of the sides of the battle-carrier.

Conveniently, the captain radioed in, "Sergeant. How goes the resupply op?"

"On schedule, ma'am. Transport one is about to lift off and I can see transport two breaking atmosphere now."

"Copy that. I'm diverting transport two to the firebase, get back there immediately. Long range scanners have detected large scale movement on the other side of the moon. The coalition is on its way."

Hark clenched his teeth, "Understood, captain. We'll cover you from here."

The grizzled sergeant got into the passenger seat of the three man buggy, "Charlie squad, we're headed back to base. Seems out coalition friends are making a move on the Lincoln. Let's show 'em what some basic grunts can do to their pretty ships."
__________

(Mood Music)

Alexis stood on the command platform and studied the holo-display in front of her. The moon was a prominent figure in the center with the Lincoln and the firebase highlighted as blue. A small green blip, labeled as foresight, was quickly speeding away from the Lincoln.

"Lincoln Command, Lincoln Command, this is Foresight. Sensors are picking up a large signature just beyond the horizon from my position. Transmitting visual."

Alexis had deployed a single SF to scout the incoming forces. She only downside to hiding behind the moon was that she had no idea what would come her way. Alexis looked over to one of the many operators, "Put Foresight's visual on screen."

On one of the large monitors, a camera feed from Foresight's SF appeared. The moon's horizon took up a quarter of the display. Then she saw it, a battle cruiser complete with a frigate squadron at the fore. The crew stared at the incoming threat and remained silent. Alexis was grateful that her adversary luckily wasn't a full on battleship. But she never saw a battle cruiser in Jehan's orbit when they arrived. Perhaps it was on the other side of the planet, or perhaps it was reinforcements. Nevertheless, the threat was real and if it wasn't handled well, the mission would still be over.

Ardin stepped up next to her on the platform, "What do you plan to do. captain? We aren't exactly in the best position to handle a battle cruiser and her escorts."

Alexis tapped her finger on the rail surrounding the platform. "It wont spool up its shields until it has a visual on the Lincoln. We just need to hit it before that happens."

Admiral Ardin raised an eye brow, "How exactly do you plan on doing that? The frigate escorts will shoot an armstad down before it reaches the capital ship."

The captain shook her head, "No armstads." The captain brought up her datapad and punched something in. Then she addressed the ship's AI. "How much will the moon's gravity offset the WMG's shot?"

"Calculating..." there was a pause, "The moon's gravitational pull is precisely one point two three seven times that of Earth's. A shot from the wave motion gun will see an offset of forty percent. If you are proposing that we use the moon's gravity well to over the horizon of the atmosphere, the chances to hit the target is zero percent."

"We're not firing over the atmosphere. We're firing through it."

The AI replied, "Captain, this will cause anomalous, possibly catastrophic, weather patterns on the moon. It will destabilize the atmosphere."

"It's not our moon. And the Coalition certainly aren't using it." Alexis grinned.

The ship's AI took a moment to calculate the new firing solution, "The chances to hit the target have increased to eighty-seven percent. The gravitational pull of the moon offsets the new solution by only nine percent."

Aston was chuckling to himself as Ardin had a look of complete surprise on his face. Alexis continued, "Order the marines into their hostile environment gear. They're going to need it."

The bridge was filled with a choir of orders and directions and warnings. Moments later, Hark chimed in. "Captain did I just hear the comm right? You're firing the WMG -through- the moon's atmosphere?"

"That's right, sergeant. We're engaging the enemy in five minutes."

"Jesus Christ this is insane..." Alexis heard Hark mutter before shutting off comms with the Lincoln for the time being.

Alexis smirked at the comment before looking over to Admiral Ardin, "Behold, your highness. The talent of the UEE Abraham Lincoln."

The next five minutes was a moment that Ardin would remember for the rest of his life. He witnessed the perfect example of a well drilled and coordinated crew that surpassed his expectations. Despite being caught in an ambush and taking some serious punishment, the crew of the Lincoln was operating at high morale. He knew it surely had to do with the confidence that Alexis had in her crazy and unfathomable ideas. He deduced that Captain Marquis' plans were so outlandish, that they might just work. He could feel the floor vibrating as the WMG charged up its shot. He felt an adrenaline rush like never before.

An engineer on another deck spoke through the comms, "Shields spooled to one hundred percent."

Another engineer spoke, "Reactor two is only operating at twelve percent. Gemini One and Gemini Two have supplemented."

"All ground units are ready for combat operation." Hark reported.

The gunnery chief spoke up, "Target locked, captain."

"Fire." Alexis gripped the railing tight.
__________

"Captain! Massive energy spike detected from the enemy vessel!"

"So soon? Any skilled captain wouldn't waste the power on their shields so soon. This will be an easy victory, men!" said the captain of the Coalition Battle Cruiser.

"It's not shields, sir. I'm detecting plasma, a lot of it."

"Hm... We aren't in range of any of their weapons. Begin spooling the shields, though. This is strange." he ordered calmly. The Coalition captain clearly wasn't in any hurry. He knew he had this battle under wraps already.
__________

The beam was loud in space, and even louder in atmosphere. Despite being miles away from the point where the WMG penetrated the atmosphere, Hark's ears began to ring. He looked off into the distance and saw the horizon glowing blue as the plasma ripped through the sky. The beam's proximity to the surface of the moon was close enough that the heat of the plasma created a long streak of glass out of the sand. A deafening thunderclap roared over the entire moon. The winds increased in strength as the airless void created by the WMG was filled. Lightning arced through the sky and clouds swirled into vicious hurricanes around the moon. On a planet with a stronger atmosphere, the effects would not have been so great.

The winds doubled again as the beam left the atmosphere and streaked back into space where it met its target. The WMG struck the belly of the battle cruiser. An atomic explosion lit up the sky like a bright star for Hark as one of the battle cruisers reactors detonated. Debris and shrapnel ignited, falling through the disturbed atmosphere and landing on mile high sand dunes. The marines gawked at the sight. Hark questioned if mankind had taken weaponry too far.

But the battle cruiser wasn't sunk yet. Coalition capital ships had massive amounts of armor between their decks and reactor bays. They wouldn't go down from just one reactor detonation. However, the shot would most definitely cripple the ship and give the advantage to the Lincoln.

The gunnery chief sighed out in amazement, "Holy shit!" he realized he had just said that out loud and cleared his throat, "Apologies ma'am. Direct hit on the target."

Alexis chuckled but put her war face back on in seconds. "Helmsman, all ahead full!"

The Lincoln's massive engines glowed hot as they began to push the lumbering behemoth of a ship toward it's crippled prey. Alexis addressed the entire crew and that of the two Gemini escorts, "All hands, this is Captain Marquis. We don't have any ace MAS pilots helping us with this engagement. What happens in the coming hours happens because of us and nobody else. There won't be anybody to praise higher than you for your victories. And there won't be anybody to blame for your defeats. For the Emperor! For the UEE!"
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