[TOP SECRET] Operation: Olympus

[Denelo]

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Finally, the broadcast equipment is aboard. One of the more difficult tasks of this vessel is to broadcast without immediately lighting up like a beacon to every single ship, station, and satellite in the system with basic radio sensors. How do you hide your location when the entire goal is to shine a radio-frequency light to every ship in the system? We could use relay satellites, but deep behind enemy lines, there is little doubt that they would be found and destroyed quickly. Transmissions would be brief and expensive, so this option was quickly discarded.

The answer: Reflection and scattering. Instead of a "lighthouse"-style transmission, we will send small groupings of narrow-beam broadcasts tightly focused at various local celestial bodies. Properly aimed and with a powerful-enough broadcast, this should allow a system-wide scattering off of the requisite surfaces that would be difficult to pinpoint. While it is still possible that, with sufficient computing power, the LSF could use ray-tracing to identify our position, we will use additional countermeasures (detailed below) to mitigate these risks.

While this still runs the risk of interception should a hostile ship pass directly between us and one of our reflection sites (assuming they survive what is for all intents and purposes a powerful long-range laser)—a risk elevated by using a large number of reflection points, though not unnecessarily so—our other countermeasures should prevent this information from being useful to the enemy.

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With broadcasting addressed, we must now turn out attention to defensive measures. As an information warfare ship, we expect this to be a high-priority target; as such, protection is of high importance. A yacht is unlikely to be able to hold its own against heavy vessels, and will instead call in aid when so confronted. Instead, we will arm it with point defense weaponry, designed to hold off snubcraft-scale attackers in a local engagement. Heavy shields will compliment these armaments, as ultimately the goal is not victory, but survival until reinforcements arrive.

To minimize the chances of such an encounter, however, Hera's primary defenses will electronic, thermal, and optical countermeasures. Even now, an advanced cloaking device is under construction at El Alto Research Facility for the vessel's use, and powerful anti-munition countermeasures have been mounted as well. Thrusters will be strengthened against enemy fire, as will engines, and a jump beacon will be mounted when available in order to call for aid in case of emergency.

Augmenting these more high-tech options will be old-school guerilla tactics. We can never remain in one place for too long, but must instead stay constantly on the move. This will ensure that if any of our broadcasts are traced back to us, we are already far too invisible and too-long gone to pose a direct threat to Hera.

Another important component of Hera's survival is prior warning. While our own Spyglass technology is far too cumbersome to fit on a transport, and several years out of date even before the Fall due to the Insurgency's failure to maintain core projects, a "minified" variant based on the unit we gave the Lane Hackers exists on the black market. Already security teams are going over it for any sign of Hacker tampering, but such efforts are imperfect against as specialist enemy like the Lane Hackers; we may need to simply take the risk, understanding that, while high-value to us and high-threat to the Navy and LSF, this would likely be a low-value asset to the Lane Hackers. We will take all the precautions possible, but the risk is always there when using technology derived from Hacker tech. As soon as the Pandion is back online, we will be prepared to replace this potentially-compromised unit with a relay for our own full-sized Spyglass.

Unfortunately, these and the broadcast equipment together leave little room for a jump drive. Inter-system movement will have to be via traditional routes, presenting one of our primary threat environments. We will need to use escort fighters and scouts to protect the vessel while inbound and outbound from a given system, limiting our operating environment until this issue is addressed. We will begin by moving it to Pinnacle. Pennsylvania is our primary operational theater for the duration of Operation Olympus, and that is the only realistic base of operations within the system at present.

Slow progress has made our original estimation appear unrealistic. An additional several days will be required; exact date to be determined, but we have set the deadline back an additional week in order to reduce mistakes that might otherwise compromise the project.