Fallen Grace

[Mercarryn]

Taba Border station
Omicron Mu
Four Days before Fallen Grace

The office was almost set in whole darkness. Only the flashing of Commander Davids's monitor and console somehow enlightened the room, but it was not much.

The meeting with the Corse and representatives of the Colonial Republic in Baffin were over. And the news he had brought back witth him were more then disturbing.
If all zhat, what was said, is true, we are at zhe edge of ein new nomad war. History is about to repeat itself, Davids thought.
If the Order wanted to stop this dangerous development from the start, he had to act quickly. And that meant he had to go through all the data the Corse and the Colonials had given him in order to prepare the needed forces.
Fallen Grace wold be something new for Taskforce One Four One. Had they engaged nomads and Guild Core ships until now on their own, using the space they knew to their advance, the assassination attempt against the Gallic king would be something that no one within his unit had experience with. Besides they would need to work with forces they had not fight with so far, not to speak about some sort of combined training.

Therefor Davids had searched for any available data in order to get a glimpse of what they would expect.
And the Schultzky assassination near Manhattan in 800 A.S. was a good example.
Back then the Order under command of Orillion had suspected, that Rheinland Admiral Schultzky had been infected by nomads and sent out to Liberty in Order to infect then President Jacobi.
To avoid another infestation, the Order had set up an ambush in orbit of Planet Manhattan while the defense systems of Newark station had been temporarily disabled.
In the end the plan had succeeded, Schultzky perished with his flagshp the RNC-Donau, but on the other hand all Order agents that were involved in the assassination had been killed by Edison Trent and Liberty Security Forces. The same Edison Trent, that later would fight alongside the Order against the nomads.

One would call it an irony of fate.

"I will not let mein agents be sent out to ein suicide mission!" Davids said to himself. He knew it would be impossible for him to save them all. The faith in getting out of any trouble alive had been lost along with the fall of Toledo.
But he could set up enough measures to ensure that the mission was a success.

"So, what did the Colonials want to get for Fallen Grace? Fighters and at least ein gunboat?", he reflected. Not bad for the start. They would face fighter swarms in Gallia for sure, so a gunboat would be necessary.
As they were about to disable a battleship, they had two options to do so. Bring a capital ships with them or use bomber squads.
The first was not possible. The Order was already low on those assets and the capital ships, that were combat ready were ordered to protect Omicron Mu against nomads and Guild Core forces. None of them could be spared for Fallen Grace.
Another reason was, that a battleship was too large to slip into the heard of Gallia without being noticed by someone. No, the only possible solution for this were a squadron of bombers.
Davids had to grins. Yes, the Sekhmet pilots of his taskforce were more then able to crush capital ships, they had proven this more then once. Especially with the little refits that had been made to some of the bombers.
Now the only thing he had to think about was the protection of the Sekhmets. Not that he did not trust the Colonials, but better safe then sorry. Interceptor wing would be a nice addendum to the forces, especially when it comes to creating some chaos.
He had to grins. Yes, the Interceptors would be more then able to fullfill that role.

His part of combat units was set up. Now there was only one thing to do now. Davids pushed a button at his terminal.
"Sefegiru. I have a job for you", he said.