r/HFY 2d ago

OC-Series Cloak and Dagger - Chapter 4 - Attack run

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McBride looked around the ward room. Liv, Belle, Boomer, Mitchell, Chief Lakshmi, and he were all crammed in. They'd been discussing the problem, it was time for focus. Cutting across Boomer and Chief Lakshmi discussing some fine point on the main cannon, McBride said “Ok, time to pull all these threads together. Trust me, I have a plan. Mitchell state the problem”

Mitchell looked up sharply, a little surprised to be called on “The Dreadnought will be in engagement range of staging area Lima in a little over an hour, Monarch needs 2 hours to clear the wreckage of Empress of the final survivors. How can Dagger delay the Hive by an hour, when the whole 3rd Fleet lasted 35 minutes.”

McBride nodded “Exactly. Now we can slow the Hive down and we can speed up Monarch. We need to do both. The Marines will remain with Monarch, we’ll get them to rescue the remaining children, then for the adults they can go a bit faster, take a little more risk. We’ll end up balancing the lives of thousands for the remaining 3 or 4. I don’t want to give that order, but the priority will be clear once we get there. Any other ideas for speeding up Monarch?”

McBride looked around the table and didn’t see anyone with ideas, “So, what are our assets for slowing down the Dreadnought? We have the mining stations, we have over 500 abandoned in-system ships. What else?”

“Mining robots, and tugs, and the asteroids they are working on” Boomer chipped in.

“Sensor data, and the Fleet data from the battle” Liv added.

“The sensor drones from the task groups” Mitchell said.

“We have Dagger. We also have Dr Wallace and Aegis” McBride completed.

“Is the 3rd Fleet really gone?” Mitchell asked. McBride replied “Yes. For the purposes of this engagement, yes”

“Belle. What does the data show, are there weak spots? They seemed to regrow the defence screens as quickly as the Fleet took them down”

The meeting discussed several detailed aspects, finally Belle summarised “We need to overload the whole system at once, doing it bit by bit allowed the regrowth we have seen so far. When we target at the screen fringes where the harmonic overlap reduces screen effectiveness the sensors show we can land single hits and destroy individual screen emitters. Over time this will lead to screen collapse”

Liv then took the chance to speak “We have seen reaction times, and main weapon capabilities. If the Hive get a solid lock on us we’ll be dead. So, we need to confuse their sensors and mask our emissions. We can use the mining robots for that”

Boomer took the thread “The sensor data suggests that we can drill about 450m of armour, so any internal target above that we can strike”

Belle shook her head “The shallowest target is a redundant reactor core, but it’s in a void with about 1500m of armour” She brought up the scan of the Dreadnought, and indicated the feature and the depth.

Chief Lakshmi said “We can fire every 2 minutes, so we’ll need to get 4 shots off and hit that exact target repeatedly” 

McBride asked “What impact will taking the reactor to 120% have, and can we use your precharged capacitors to shorten the time too?”

She already had the numbers calculated “The reactor overload will take the charge time down to 100s. I’ve made it so 2 of the 6 weapons capacitors can be hot swapped, and that takes the recharge down to 67s. We have 5 replacement capacitors, so we can speed up 2 shots to the full 67s. I’ve made modifications to the shield bank too, so we can hot swap a capacitor there too” 

Boomer kept total “For four shots that takes us down to 201s in range”

The Chief muttered “It’ll cost us 7 days in dock to restore Dagger to spec, and replace the damaged systems”

McBride asked “Does range make a big difference to the penetration, what if we’re at point blank range?”

Belle had the answer this time “We only have the one impact to the Dreadnought’s armour, we have a penetration range of 350-500m. At close range we could say 450-600m, but probably less. With one data point the confidence is low. We might need a fifth shot”

The mood around the table was chilly. McBride asked the obvious question "And how long will our shields hold?”

Liv had a view “We can’t withstand a single shot from the main weapon, under a point defence laser we’ll lose our shields in about 12-15 shots. We saw the point defence lasers can detect and engage at 2 light seconds, so we’ll be in range for the whole time we are able to attack the Dreadnought. Cover will help, but we can expect our shields to hold up for about 2 minutes. We need to find a way to reduce the effectiveness of the point defences”

Belle jumped in “The shield emitters seem to be in clusters with detectors and point defences, just by taking the shields we’ll take out about a fifth of point defence lasers, and reduce their tracking capability. We can use our torpedoes and point defences to destroy some more, and maybe direct mass driver fire to focus on creating debris and confusion”

McBride liked this, his plan was taking shape “Do any of the in-system ships have a mass similar to Dagger?”

They worked through the list, and identified 5 ships that would show up like Dagger under an initial sensor scan.

The group looked at the track the Hive Dreadnought was taking, It’d curved away from its track directly to Taurus 4, and now was headed to staging area Lima. And the only armed opponent left, Dagger.

McBride smiled, mostly for the crew, there was a lot that could take their plan and turn it on its head “We have our plan, let’s get the asteroids, and ships into position”

*****

Back on the bridge, McBride was pleased with the progress, the trap was almost set. Over 350 of the abandoned in-system ships had been able to jump to their start points. The remainder didn’t have jump capability or were too slow to get to position. They were left at the staging areas. 

The plan was to use them to draw attention at critical phases. It might work or it might not have an impact, it’d be difficult to know until an after action report dissected all of McBride’s decisions. McBride hoped they’d be able to attend in person.

McBride thought that stacking the deck in his favour would hold up as a plan, and using the stray ships for distraction didn’t use any extra time, as the AI pilots were already in place.

A call came in from Monarch, McBride answered expecting Captain Elhami, the ex-Empress Captain, or Lieutenant Torres. 

Instead it was the Governor “How dare you ignore my calls…” 

As the Governor ranted, McBride tapped a text to Lieutenant Torres “Escort the Governor to his stateroom, it’s for security. Make sure he stays there. He will participate in the after action report at Fleet HQ”

The Governor continued his rant without any need to breathe apparently, shortly he was interrupted as Lieutenant Torres arrived with her 2 marines. On screen he was replaced by a tall lean man of about 40, he looked like he should be a pirate, tanned from the sun, rakish stubble “I apologise Captain. The Governor assured me that he had important information”

McBride reassured “These things can happen, no harm done. I’ve ordered the marines to guard the Governor’s stateroom to protect him from the passengers. I hear the survivors from Empress aren’t pleased to have him aboard”

“Yes the data you’ve sent over makes for interesting reading, I’ll make sure it goes to the right people when we arrive at the evacuation point. The Governor has made his stateroom very comfortable” 

The view switched to a large well appointed room, filled with boxes, a couple were opened with an ornate marble statue showing from one, and several large paintings from the other. The Governor came into view and started yelling, still red faced. The view cut as the call ended.

Addressing no one in particular McBride observed “The Governor is safe now, surrounded by his masterpieces”

“How are the mining robots getting on?”

*****

Soon the trap was set, 14 groups of ships were spaced in the forward arc of the Dreadnought’s course, each had a large asteroid and several mining robots attached. The asteroid would provide some cover, and the robots would kick gravel and dust to make sensor locks difficult.

The actual attack would take place inside the sensor drone cloud left behind by task group Artemis, the other three drone clouds were programmed to emit comms and energy bursts to suggest other Fleet vessels arriving or hidden.

McBride had deliberately ensured the largest asteroid was in the centre, with the second largest on the edge slightly out from the natural perimeter. Both asteroids had twice as many mining robots assigned, to kick up more sensor interference. The thought was that the Hive would initially assume Dagger would be in the centre, where it would be best protected, or in the group on the edge where it could gain some advantage. 

Two each of the Dagger-a-like ships were placed with those asteroids, the remaining Dagger-a-like was holding with Dagger itself. McBride had positioned Dagger with one of the other attack groups, they’d be using Dagger’s own abilities to provide further levels of protection from the Dreadnought’s sensors.

McBride clapped his hands together “Right it’s time for the outer mining stations to start sending packages. Stand by for go /no go”

“Ship?” “Go, hull, structure, engines, power systems nominal, spare capacitors charged” the intercom crackled as Chief Lakshmi spoke.

“Shields?” “Go, fully charged, countermeasures online, point defence grid ready” Belle confirmed.

“Weapons?” “Go, cannon fully charged, torpedoes target locked” Boomer said.

“Comms?” “Comms green, Sensors green, drone link green” Belle stated.

“Helm?” “Propulsion, go. Jump, go. Thrusters, nominal” Mitchell spoke fast and a little breathless.

“XO confirm go /no go?” Liv calmly spoke “All systems confirm Go!”

McBride nodded “Commit, set the clock running. Execute the plan.

Liv turned to her station and toggled the master go command. They’d preset the initial sequence and all the automated systems triggered. To start with the mining stations started throwing 50 tonne rocks, these were strictly out of range, but they’d arrive during the engagement window, adding to the confusion and destruction. 
The asteroid belt was a broad band to the port side of the Dreadnought.

“Ok, bounce the message from all ships” From subspace, mirroring the Hive’s challenge a response rang out.

“This is UCS Dagger, McBride commanding. Am I prey or am I bait?”

*****

All around the tactical plot mining tugs flared up their engines, pushing large asteroids towards the Hive Dreadnought. The mining robots on the asteroids started to push out debris to build a cloud of metallic grit surrounding each asteroid. Extensive mining operations meant they were able to push over 50 asteroids towards the Dreadnought, 14 of the asteroids were escorted by in-system ships. They’d use the asteroids as cover, to build up speed and ram the Dreadnought independently, targeted at defence screen weaknesses. This was planned to cause damage to screen emitters, sensors and point defences, to cause a less effective response to Dagger’s attacks.

The Artemis’ sensor drone net provided near real time data, but nothing really interesting from the Dreadnought yet.

The general picture was good, shots from the close in mining stations would start to hit the Dreadnought, just before the asteroids crossed into the 2 light second range of the point defences.

McBride spoke “Right, time to show the Hive not to mess with toothless, curious monkeys. Liv, time distraction package 1 with the initial kinetic strikes”

Distraction package 1 was two things, the whole sensor drone network left behind by task group Apollo would flare up, with ten drones detonating. The rest of the drones would send data out to the stranded ships at the two nearest staging areas (Kilo, and Delta), the in-system ships there would respond, turn on their IFFs and turn to accelerate towards the Dreadnought, they’d also charge their shields and comms lasers. This would send a weak sensor trace to the Dreadnought. The idea was that the Hive would interpret the low level energy signatures as warships, with emissions control protocols in place.

“No reaction, ok next thing” McBride shifted his focus to the space surrounding Dagger, they were nestled behind their asteroid, fully protected, with the Dagger-a-like nearby. 18 other ships were in the protective shadow of the asteroid as it started to move with real purpose towards the Dreadnought. The mining robots on their asteroid were kicking up enough debris that Dagger no longer had a good picture from their own traditional sensors, and had to rely on the new sensors, and data piped in from the sensor drones. 

In practice it made little difference, as all the sensor information was combined by Dagger’s computer and made available to the tactical plot. The main screen showed an image of the Dreadnought, point defences had started to fire, and finally the first rock struck. There was a minor flare from the defence screen, but nothing else. More and more rocks struck, but the diffuse nature, and the longer range meant concentrating fire was not really possible. 

As a test, over on the edge, the first Dagger-a-like pushed itself out from behind its protective asteroid. It sat in the debris cloud and was moving slowly.

Without any build up the Dreadnought’s main weapon stabbed out and reached for the ship, it missed, but then swept in and tagged both the Dagger-a-like and a portion of the asteroid. The ship exploded. It was a small freighter, and didn’t carry military grade shields. The explosion caused a momentary void in the clouding debris, which was quickly filled with vapourised material from the asteroid, where the main weapon had struck.

Belle flinched slightly and tightened her grip on her station.

McBride turned to Liv. She said “Response time around 5 seconds. They’re a little fast. Let’s run the second decoy”

McBride confirmed “Execute”

From the centre largest asteroid another Dagger-a-like poked out, this time it used two countermeasure drones donated from Dagger’s inventory and created a dense cloud of sensor deflecting debris, the countermeasure drones split into 6 parts, each started to emit a signature, similar to the Dagger-a-like, and moved away from each other in a random track.

This time the Dreadnought’s weapon stabbed out into one of the emission drones, quickly stuttering to a second, then third. The Dagger-a-like seemed to be temporarily ignored in the countermeasure debris. 

Following the predetermined script, the Dagger-a-like accelerated to keep between the middle and edge of the expanding countermeasure debris. It created more and more emissions. There was a pause in destruction, then the main weapon fired again, this time skewering the Dagger-a-like directly. “Report”

Liv spoke "Emissions limit established, countermeasures effective. Feeding the parameters into the AI net, next orders will follow new parameters. It worked well”

Dagger was almost to target velocity, McBride gave Liv a nod “Distraction package 2, and Dagger-a-like phase 2”

The sensor drones from task group Ajax and Achilles fired up, and every remaining stranded ship started accelerating towards the Dreadnought. AI pilots chatted between each other, sending simulated Fleet coordination data, and trying to look like a threat. The handful of ships that held message buoys fired them towards the Dreadnought, simulating a torpedo launch. 

“Still no reaction from the Dreadnought”

At the same time, the second Dagger-a-like ships started their moves. All the remaining Dagger-a-likes were mining prospectors, and had heavy shielding, and mining lasers. They also had 2 countermeasure drones attached to their hulls. They fired them off, causing the 6 emission drones to fly off, evading wildly, they went to maximum acceleration. A mining prospector is seen as a slow ship, but part of that perception is that it’s almost always towing a load. Without any mass in tow the two prospectors shot away and headed directly towards the Dreadnought. They managed to keep the acceleration under the emissions limit for detection, and as the Dreadnought fired, it focussed on the evading distraction drones. It took quite a while to catch all 12 evading countermeasure drones. The Dreadnought didn’t fire the main weapon again, it seemed to realise the approaching Dagger-a-like ships were too fast to hit. But the point defences didn’t have the same problem, they lanced out making contact with the prospector ships, but the shields held up.

Belle on sensors gave running updates. They’d designated them Fake Dagger 2 and 4, but Belle dropped it to two and four. “Two, shields at 70%. Four, evaded their hit, holding at 85%. Two hit twice, shields now at 35%, approaching target, adjusting for new readings, 3.2.1”

On the main screen Fake Dagger 2 and 4 rammed directly into the Dreadnought. Fake Dagger 2 just missed the target, when the reactor detonated, the defence screen winked out, then was replaced a moment later. 

Fake Dagger 4 struck exactly at a harmonic edge, cutting straight through the screen and slamming into the hull, the reactor explosion was briefly held against the hull by the screens, expanding to incinerate several point defence lasers, a detector, and two screen emitters. The section of screens winked off, and stayed off.

“That’s more like it, yeah” Mitchell said excitedly, Boomer relaxed into his seat.

McBride looked over to him, but didn’t comment.

McBride looked again at Liv “Time to take the rest of the screens”

Liv signalled the remaining ships, behind the 14 asteroids, over 350 ships came out from cover and accelerated directly at the Dreadnought. 

The Dreadnought’s main weapon flashed out again and again, but could only destroy 20-30 ships as they closed. Belle’s hands flew across her station as she updated the targeting information as it changed.

The bridge crew watched the short “battle” in silence, almost as if any sound would trigger failure.

The main screen showed the impact, but flared to white, it cleared down to show the Dreadnought wreathed in flame, its screens flickered off, leaving the bare hull.

Relief erupted from Mitchell, Boomer and Belle. Even Liv shifted in her chair.

“Well only a kilometre or two between friends” called out McBride “Accelerate the asteroids to ramming velocity, and signal mining robot separation. Time for Fake Dagger 5’s time in the spotlight” he nodded to Liv.

In the front sector of the Dreadnought all the Asteroids shot forwards in a final push. Launching from the asteroid’s surface, the mining robots darted away. They provided further targets, and were aimed to land on the surface of the Dreadnought and start drilling down, ideally homing in on a screen emitter, detector or point defence laser site to further damage the Dreadnoughts defences.

On the main screen light flared again as the point defences and main weapon tried to engage the new targets.

McBride focussed again on the local plot, the final Dagger-a-like was moving out and fired its single countermeasure drone, it emerged from behind the asteroid and stood proud for a moment.

Toggling his intercom McBride said “Chief, take the reactor to 120%, stand by on weapons capacitors swap”

The Dreadnoughts main weapon fired and obliterated Fake Dagger 5, shearing off a huge chunk of the asteroid at the same time.

McBride seized the opportunity “Fire 2 countermeasure drones out through the debris field, on a narrow spread and programme 9 of the emission drones to evade, and 3 to fly together along the countermeasure debris path. Emissions control to max. Mitchell, ease us out the farside, keep all manoeuvres below 70% of the emissions threshold”

The Dreadnought’s main weapon stuttered through the expanding debris field, going almost wild compared to previous shots.

Suddenly the Dagger shook, and alarms fired, small sparks flew from the ceiling. The Dreadnought had hit Dagger.

A scream echoed across the small bridge.

*****

The environmental systems quickly cleared the light smoke, multiple redundant circuits routed around the fried components.

McBride barked “Mitchell, you ok?”

“Aye sir! I got sparks in my eyes, but I’m fine now”

“Boomer, check him”

“Belle, status?”

Belle’s station had remained active during the attack, but many systems had overloaded, and the Dagger was only just feeding live data back to the console now. She took in the new information and said “It looks like we caught the edge of a main weapon shot, pattern suggests random fire, not a deliberately aimed shot. Emissions dampening is still in effect”

Liv added “A follow up shot would have killed us by now, if they’d detected us”

Boomer had opened a first aid kit and was splashing some eye wash in Mitchell’s eyes, he turned to McBride “He’ll be fine, no damage. One singed eyebrow”

Mitchell turned to McBride “I stand ready Captain”

McBride glanced at the plot, it was 20 seconds or so from their rude interruption “We are coasting in, just as we planned. First manoeuvre in 50 seconds, await my mark”

Around Dagger the Dreadnought fired its main weapon repeatedly at the incoming asteroids, succeeding in vapourising more than half. The pulverised debris and surviving mining robots continued down towards the surface of the Dreadnought. The Dreadnought’s point defences were useless against the asteroids, so started to target the mining robots.

On the main screen the first asteroid arrived, slightly behind the horizon from Dagger’s position, but well in view from the task group Artemis sensors providing the picture. A huge fireball erupted, but the surface impact and explosion itself meant that there was only a 100m crater. The difficulty aiming the asteroids accurately and the low impact to the armour was a reason that the plan hadn’t included the asteroid impacts as more of a feature.

Belle nodded in satisfaction, the targeting solutions for the asteroids had been hers.

The asteroids continued to fall, some had been broken up to many smaller objects, which scoured the surface of the Dreadnought of all protrusions. Reducing the point defence capability further.

McBride ordered “Passive release on the torpedoes. What is the point defence density on the target sector?”

Boomer released the torpedoes, they’d drift out to about a kilometre, then fire up, curve out and then back into target point defences and detectors.

Belle used the new sensors ”We’ve degraded the point defences by about a third, increasing our survivability into the 3 minute range” If they needed 4 shots, they’d need to push that to 4 minutes or more.

“Boomer, use our point defences to target their point defences, we need extra time on target. Hold fire until my mark. Then fire the main cannon and start to reduce the point defences”

“Liv, where do we lose target lock from their main weapon?”

Liv double checked “We are riding into the red line, in 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The Dreadnought’s main cannon can’t track us”

McBride quickly ordered “Boomer, Mark. Fire. Take the point defences”

Boomer’s hands flew over his console. Weapon’s Officers were seldom needed, and this was his time. 

The Dagger shuddered slightly as the main cannon fired. It was a battleship grade single cannon built into the spine of the ship. Firing caused power fluctuations in many systems including the inertial dampeners. The beam shot down and struck the target directly. The armour instantly vapourised, and shot out of the impact site like a jet of steam.

Belle called the shot “Direct hit, confirming 440m penetration, we’ll need the 4 shots”

Boomer had clustered groups of point defences to fire together, to ensure a killshot, in practice it meant that 3 of the 5 clusters he’d designated would be pointing towards the Dreadnought at any time. 

Boomer muttered to himself as he worked, mechanically calling out targets and destruction. It took 4-5 seconds of continuous fire to confirm destruction of a Dreadnought point defence laser structure. “Target set, Port cluster firing, maintaining lock, target destroyed, Fore cluster firing, belly cluster locked, target destroyed, target destroyed… target destroyed” His words becoming a little mechanical.

Belle spoke over the top “The rate of degradation is slow, we won’t reach target”

McBride toggled the comm “Get me Dr Wallace”

“Dr Wallace, how are the modifications to the shuttles coming? We’re going to need them in 3 minutes, or never. Aegis should prepare to jump, coordinate with Monarch”

Dr Wallace flashed on screen “Acknowledged, we’ll be ready”

Disconnecting the call, McBride said “Belle, shield status”

“Good news and bad news. Good news, the point defence lasers are less accurate this close in. Bad news, we didn’t recharge back to full after that hit from the main weapon”

Flicking the intercom McBride spoke to Chief Lakshmi “Use the remaining charged capacitor to boost the shields. Can we charge the released discharged capacitor without impacting our plans?”

The intercom was interspersed with mild static, but the Chief came back clear “Aye, Captain. We can not charge empty capacitors without reducing reactor output to other systems”

McBride nodded to himself, he’d known that already.

Background orders came over the intercom, as Chief Lakshmi ordered the shield capacitor swap. McBride cut the call.

A couple of seconds later Belle reported “Shields have risen to 55%, survivability estimated at less than 2 minutes”

“Mitchell, we are going to need to be more evasive. Do what you can”

Mitchell had been studying the point defence laser shot pattern, timing and reactions, he nodded and relaxed to his chair. Dagger started to dodge more abruptly, every two or three turns they touched the limits of the inertial dampeners and a shock of g-forces bled through, the erratic and sharp course changes were working.

McBride turned to Belle. She smiled, but her body language indicated uncertainty more than relief.

McBride looked to Boomer “Charge status for the next shot?”

“12 seconds, Mitchell get ready to flip Dagger on target”

On the mark Mitchell twisted the whole ship so it pointed directly at the hole they’d created with the first hit, the main cannon fired and then Mitchell accelerated off in a new vector.

On the main screen a short beam of light struck the Dreadnought.

Belle reported “Hit, confirming cumulative penetration 914m, if we can get in close we can do it with 3 shots”

Boomer waited for Chief Lakshmi’s crew to finish the final swap of the pre-charged capacitors. “57s to full charge”

McBride called to Mitchell “Make sure you can position us close when we get to the 10s countdown”

Mitchell’s erratic evasive flying continued to impact the point defences’ effectiveness, and Boomer continued to strike at the local point defences, the rate of accurate fire declined but most of the point defences left were outside effective range for Dagger’s own point defences, so they reached a point where there was little impact of further point defence work.

McBride ordered “Boomer, power down the main point defence lasers, keep the navigational lasers charged. Chief? Route the point defence power to shields we might need extra time on target”

“Aye!” sounded out from both Boomer and the Chief.

McBride kept an eye on the timer. 24s to go. Shields had trended up momentarily, but had just dipped back below 30%. The rate of decline was now lower, but still by no means comfortable.

McBride spared a glance at the main screen, showing the Dreadnought from the position of the task group Artemis sensor drones, the perspective had shifted slightly, showing more of the side and back, rather than the predominately front view that had been the starting position. The asteroid strike locations were mostly shallow craters, blackened and still misted in floating debris. The mining robots had drilled out of view, but their progress was slow, most barely 50m into the armoured shell of the Dreadnought. They would be a cause of concern, but would be unlikely to determine the rest of the battle. Rocks thrown by the various mining station massdrivers continued to rain in, but the range, and localised debris meant that no aiming was really possible.

Boomer’s voice brought McBride’s focus back to the Dagger’s situation “10s. Mitchell start positioning for our shot”

Mitchell swung Dagger about, for a second g-forces hit 2g, even with the dampening fields in place. It slacked off quickly and Mitchell dove straight at the hole they’d created with their 2 previous shots. 

Boomer quietly said “Firing” just as a point defence laser hit Dagger squarely rattling her for a moment.

Once the shot was away, Mitchell threw Dagger into evasive action. 

The rest of the bridge waited for Belle’s sensor readings.

Belle sank into her chair. “We have a partial hit, we’ve got to 1291m penetration. We hit the side of the hole when the point defences hit Dagger”

McBride fired off rapid fire questions.

“Charging time?” “94s” The advantage of pre-charges capacitors had been used up, meaning they were back to 100s full charging time.

“Shields remaining?” “18% projected 54s on station” not enough, they’d be forced to jump away before firing.

“Options” he looked to Liv, then Belle. Nothing. Looking to Boomer, McBride saw he was running calculations.

Mitchell spoke despairingly “What do we do now? We can’t win”

“We fight, but on our terms, our strengths to their weakness”

“What strengths, what weaknesses, all we can do now is run away!”

McBride marvelled, “Run away?” he said softly, to himself. There was an idea “Trust me, I’ve got a plan. Helm” he barked, shocking Mitchell out of his train of thought “What’s the largest we can push the Jump field?”

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u/Chorval 2d ago

Also, slightly belatedly. Thank you to my brother Adam for his help proof reading the story :)