Capture

[Xing]

If activity in the control room could reach a higher point, then this must have been the maximal possible. It was very near anarchy, not much of military discipline left.
Alban himself was panicking, beginning to assemble ships to go help New York.

And then, that Kaitlynn annoyance came back in...
"All ships, stand by your position..."
"General, you are not in command of this..."
"You are neither my superior. In fact, our ranking priviledges can be quite discutable. Here is not the matter. You are sending these men to a trap, and I'm here to stop another catastrophe."
He paused, before adding, his tone venimous,
"Admiral, sir."

There wasn't much else to be discussed. Everyone heard this upon open channel. They all knew the loss of the 45th battlegroup was mainly due to admiral Alban, and such things weren't forgiven quickly. In these situations, it wasn't even mutiny, mere switch of command to get rid of incompetence.

"Alright men... now, the Order thought they've managed to foul us. They expect us to do things. We will do exactly what they won't do."
She looked at a colonel, trying to have a reassuring smile,
"Tell me, what do they expect us to do, right now?"
"Go back with at least half our actual fleet here, and rescue New York system, ma'am."
"Exact. Now, we don't do that. All vessels, stay here. Now, we've got to be one step ahead of them. Here's the plan..."

--
On Manhattan, the civilian crafts were obviously panicked, and ran away as fast as they could from the Order warships.
Strangely, the Manhattan high orbit space was completely empty when the Order ship arrived. Or, not really, there were about 3 Liberty dreadanguht with their standard escort, but scattered all around in a way that the Order ships had an immense opening of at least 3 kilometres with nothing or so opposing them, to make planetary bombardment.

--

"Except, you must really be a fool..."
Fleet Admiral Albert Richmond, in command of the Northern Liberty Navy First Defence Fleet, looked at his tactical console with a severe frown. How these ships managed to break through his first line of security was quite questionable... the fact they've managed to damage at this extensive point the Missouri, was most infuriating. Probably some kind of comm. disruption device.

But now, he didnt intended these scums to escape him without paying dearly.

Richmond was an intelligent man. Unlike Alban, he calculated all odds first, and was extremely cautious. His nickname was the snake and his battle were as efficient as said animal.
The Order made a very grave mistake, attacking New York today. Of course, his own fleet wasnt as large as the Orders one at that moment, most being dispersed across Liberty on Various patrol duty. However, he estimated having enough to scare them away.

Tell battlegroup alpha to cruise by the northern hemisphere of the planet. Beta and Gamma are to hold their position. All ships, turn their bow toward the hostiles, their target are the battleships.
Yes sir.
Richmond paced away from the console showing the hologram of the space battle.
Contact Manhattan planetary defence. Tell them to ready Aegis Shield Systems everywhere possible on the estimated striking area of the Order group.
He heard another acknowledgement from his communication officer.
Tell them as well, to prepare the Gauss canons and Ion batteries. Their targets are the gunboats. They are to route all the energy from the western and eastern part of the city to these weapons. Their orders; collapse their shield by the ion canons, and cycle between the Gauss canons to finish them off. I want them to pick them off two at a time. Remember, Aegis Shields are to be powered at their strongest on these areas. We dont want to be left without any weapon. They are free to fire on maximal range.
Copy that sir.

Now, here are the orders to the battleship captains.
--

S stop it Trinity managed to whisper.
For once, the LSF commander did stop. He went away, and came back with a chair and sat down, looking like the marble statue he seemed to be.
Lets see. You have contacted the organisation known as the Order through a contact, known to be your own brother, a high ranking member of the said organisation. The two of you have been contacting each other through private civilian lines every now and then when he managed to come within House Space.
He looked at his datapad, making sure the recording red light was still on.
After what, youve decided to inform your crew with data coming from the Order to convince them of defecting with you. At this point, we wont check if these data are actually truthful or not as this is irrelevant for this investigation.
He paused, drinking slowly from a cup of water.
Trinity cursed the man interiorly for this act. Just the fact he could still take some kind of pleasure at torturing her merely by drinking, fully knowing she was thirsty as hell, made her want to yell in anger.
For all she know, there werent much more humiliations and torture technique she hadnt gone through
All she managed to do was shaking lightly the manacles restraining her (now nude) body, until she was forced to remain calm once again, as the man pushed on a button, causing electric arc to hit her.
She was so empty, she could only moan weakly in pain.
I suggest you dont move too much. We are far from being over with you, Im afraid. Lets continue

--
Planetary bombardment wasnt very effective unless you had an immense invasion fleet. The mere fact a planetary atmosphere was, in itself, a natural protection that absorbed over 50% of a laser canons strength, was quite annoying.
So when the 50% leftover of energy hit the Aegis shields, it wasnt really dramatic.
And Liberty certainly didnt let their capital home world equipped with weak shielding systems. All over the sun-side of the planet-city, numerous hexagons of blue light appeared and disappeared as the shield was hit, restored, and hit again without much damaging.
Despite the state of alert, citizen could easily go out and watch the show, but for security reason, were asked to stay underground until the terrorist attack was dealt with.

Again, if a civilian stayed on the ground, he could see one of the rare things few saw in their life; numerous batteries of ion guns raising from the ground, immense shadows of metallic structure by the dawn on the planet. They made a symphony of hellish hydraulic noises as they deployed, pointing their massive canons toward outer space.
They remained silent, as something else rose to the surface. These were the enormous Gauss canons, or, electro-magnetic projectile launchers. A technology not very useful on starfighter, or even battleships because of the immense amount of energy required to fire these, Gauss canons were however the primary line of Liberty planetary defence.
And they were devastating for sure

A mysterious whine could be heard, as the Gauss canons finished deploying. But the whine didnt came from them, it was the ion batteries, charging up and firing: a real firework show! Thousands and thousands of blue energy lances firing toward two concentrated point in space.

As quickly as it happened, barely 3 seconds later, the Gauss canons were heard, loud bangs and quick explosion of energy at the end of their canon though their projectile went so fast, they couldnt be seen with normal human eyes.

--
Fire at will!
The cruisers of alpha, beta and gamma battlegroups fired together in a very synchronised pattern over the battleships of the Order, as the first lances of ion hit the gunboats, and collapsed their shield with ease.
Then, as the Order battleships replied back against the closest cruisers, the Liberty dreadnaught, approaching slowly on lateral trusts, opened their vertical torpedo tubes These werent used often. In fact, most vessels of the Liberty navy didnt even have these weapons. They were used in the case of a war against another house, and for a good reason; these tubes were designed to fire nuclear warheads
Hence, only the last lines of the Liberty defence forces had such weapons.

They fired, the missiles hurling at incredible speed toward the battleships. The Order gunners tried desperately to pick them off from a distance and some did manage to disable a few, but most hit target. Of the 4 battleships, 3 were now heavily damaged, large portion of the hull having melted down.

The small nuclear apocalypse over, all the Order gunboats were gone. The Gauss canon destroyed them before their captain could even notice they were targeted by these guns

--
Downward, the ion-gauss system were slowly reloading their energy sources, as steam of smoke came out of the canons. It would take a good 4 minutes or so.
Whoever were striking at them, were better to run off right now

--
Their nuclear projectile unleashed, the dreadnaughts resumed normal battle position, turning their vulnerable flank to show their slim front profile, and opened fire
Despite being numerically inferior, they now had the advantage: the Order vessels made a long distance, used much energy to cloak, and two were so severely damaged, immense components were detaching from the ships as they tried some semblance of retreating manoeuvres. One stopped dead in space as the engines entirely failed, while another seemed merely drifting blindly, its bridge seemingly gone. But overall, the captain of the Liberty naval ships knew the remaining active pairs could be quite deadly. One could never be too sure faced with Order tech. They wished the planetary defence system came back online quick
Then, it would be an impressive victory over these terrorists scum

--
St-Mitchell was now back into a disciplined military base. The ships were quietly aligned, ready for interception.
And then, four components at each quadrant of the station detached. They went to 2.5 kilometres of distance from the station, and stopped their thrusters. The automated satellites began sending a powerful beam of light back to the station

General Kaitlynn walked toward the viewport of the station to watch the automated drones do their work.
Quite beautiful will it hold?
Our techs guarantee us it will. It seems to be running on some kind of infinity powercell, that keeps regenerating as part of it dies. Some bio nanotechnologies used by the nomad. This shield system can technically well, it could technically hold forever for all we know. But, general, weve never tested it before in open warfare.
In the background, someone asked for a test. For a few second, St Mitchell was surrounded by a beautiful shield of golden light exactly the same observed around nomad bases.
I hope it will do. Take care of the matters here, colonel. Dont let the admiral intimidate you. He wont dare speak against my command after all what he did

--
Isabelle was running toward the prison cell, where was held Trinity. It was now, or never. She needed to know the truth, and her brother obviously didnt told her the whole story. Just like the navy, or the LSF.
Well, she couldnt blame him. They were after all, enemy. And probably will be forever. Nonetheless, she felt the Order was closer to the truth than her side was

---