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Stand at Carpo (Text Version)
#1
More than a century ago, the Solar System was set ablaze as colonies declared their sovereignty from Earth. Our people when they first settled these worlds and established the colonies had new hopes, new dreams, and new lives waiting to be built. These were eventually shattered, not only by a rapidly solidifying Earth, but also by the greed of many men. It was not one particular breed of men. It was many breeds of people and organisations. This meant corporations, national entities, politicians on the colonies, and like us, they all had their own goals and dreams. Then one day, those politicians on the colonies had found life’s bottleneck: phosphorous in vast quantities on certain moons of various gas giants, on Deimos, and in many asteroids in the Belt and some of the Trojan objects. In an instant, we had gone from territories administered by separate national entities on Earth and (in recent years) its de-facto military force since the various terror attacks of the 2370s, the United Nations Authority on Planetary Affairs (UNAPA) to various independent states which would not only compete against each other, but against Earth as well. The stories about the Extraplanetary Wars were many, as is the Interbellum between the two. These are those stories, including my grandfather’s, my mother’s and finally, my own.” - Ching Wei, Clash of the Worlds: Stories of the First Extraplanetary War, Introduction
***
“Gentlemen, the situation has started to become more desperate than it already was.” spoke a man in Ganyrstrovian, a dialect of Russian, through the holoscreen. “The Gaians have already deployed reinforcements to assist their remaining troops in the Jovian system, and we have been suspecting of this for the past two months.”

“Agreed” spoke another man in the Operations Centre. “And we have only confirmed it three days ago, when the task force began deceleration burn.”

“Any destinations that we are looking at?” the man in the holoscreen asked.

“We have been able to accurately locate it within the past month” spoke a different high-ranking officer at the left of the board representing a 3D holographic display of the Solar System. “And they are heading to reinforce Callisto. However, we do have a plan to intercept the hostile fleet and cripple or destroy it.”

“And what exactly is this ‘plan’?” the man in the holoscreen asked the officer. The officer then zoomed onto Jupiter and the board displayed a map of the Jovian system. The officer then pointed to the tiny moon called Carpo on it.

“See that tiny speck?” the officer asked his superior. “That moon is where we will intercept and defeat the task force. A conventional Hohmann transfer is not an option, so we may have to do with a Brachistochrone Transfer. We can intercept them in about nine days.”

“Good. Any available task forces in the area?” the man in the holoscreen asked before the officer.

“We do have one. It’s very small task force, but they are one of the best. Task Force 12. It currently has six functioning SDVs, two of each type. This means drone carriers, SOVs and SDeVs.

“I doubt that your plan could work, but I suppose we have no other option. Marshall Makhrov, I am authorising your plan, although I will mention that your plan is risky and dangerous. The probability of success might depend on twelve.”

“Thank you, Planetary Marshall. I will commence preparations effective immediately.” spoke Marshall Makhrov as the Planetary Marshall shut off his holoscreen.

***
The BKK Drakon Smerti (Death Dragon), and 5 other spacecraft: the BKK Ognennyy Shar (Fireball), the BKK Zhnets (Reaper), the BKK Adskyi Ogoni (Hellfire), the BKK Sila Yupitera (Strength of Jupiter), and the BKK Ruka Svaroga (Hand of Svarog), had already been en route to Carpo for over 4 days when planning of the actual battle began onboard the BKK Death Dragon.

The craft was massive, but tiny compared to even a small naval craft from Earth, with two habitat modules spinning around the craft, with each module rotating twice every minute, which would fold into the craft accelerates and and with the spacecraft itself powered by a fusion reactor. The craft had a fusion drive, a cluster of three nuclear thermal engines, and was equipped with several coilguns to strike a hostile craft on its horizontal and vertical sides, two for each side. The craft also had 4 primary radiators capable of being concealed in the battlefield, Between the engines and the reactor there was a spherical-like object that spun on itself as the craft moved and boiled liquid metal to radiate waste heat. It was called a Bubble Membrane Radiator.

It was an example of a typical Glushko-class SOV from the early 24th Century, but this Glushko-class SOV had been manufactured with its internal systems upgraded to fit the technology of 2394, and with the replacement of outdated parts and pieces in the internal components of the craft.

Still, it was a very impressive SOV compared to the SDeVs and drone carriers, all retrofitted Heavy Planetary Transportation Vehicles or HPTVs for short, and the low gravity (by Earth standards) generated by the spin habitats was not a concern to its thirty-man crew, genetically engineered to the lower gravity of Ganymede, not even to Commander Yuri Mikhailovich Torapev.

The Commander was an experienced, battle-hardened spacecraft commander with experiences in the art of military tactics and spacecraft operations, the former ever since he first read the works of Sun-Tsu and analysed the tactics used by the various great powers of history. As a Commander, he wanted to provide the crew and anyone in his command an opportunity to be flexible and to be able to adapt, unlike the majority of his more authoritarian and “by the book”-style superiors and fellow officers. Of course, Toparev was not excluded from this, as even he was a very authoritarian man when it came to obeying the orders of his superiors. Still, this principle helped lead to the successes in Thebe and in Pywill Crater and he hoped, since they left for Carpo, that this would lead them to success. However, if there is one thing he wanted to know aside from what he already knew, it was the knowledge of feeling that he meant something to people. If it meant being anonymous or known, then let it be so, he said once as an adolescent back on Ganymede. He kept that when he first joined as part of the Soviet Cosmonaut Expeditionary Force, before the attacks forced UNAPA to take control, and before the war. Things changed, but the ideal remained.

Toparev was already sleeping in the Commander’s Quarters when Chief Exo Officer Voloshyn knocked on the door to wake him.

“Come in!” Toparev said in Ganyrstrovian Russian as he woke up from his sleep, and in a rather grumpy tone in his voice.

“Commander!” Voloshyn spoke in a hurried fashion. “Lt. Marshall Guskov wants you in the CIC now.”

Toparev sighed for a moment. He spoke, still grumpy and with his eyes still barely open:

“What does he need now, Voloshyn?”

“Apparently” Voloshyn replied. “They are getting ready for the conference.”

“I will be there.” He spoke in a more calm tone, and looked at his uniform in the closet at the other side of the quarters.

He changed his clothing from his pyjamas to his uniform after Voloshyn left and went down to the CIC in HabModule 1, passing via the corridors of the spin habitat trying to get there.

Toparev arrived at the CIC with all of its personnel conducting all sorts of activities, from analysing trajectories, to checking radiator temperature, to communicating between other craft, even making managing the computers and making sure they provide a good firing solution when in combat. The other Commanders and Lt. Marshall Guskov were all displayed in the holoscreen, opting to commence. Toparev stood before them, and greeted them with a military salute.

“Commanders.” spoke Guskov in Ganyrstrovian Russian with a tone equivalent to a man of authority and respect. “We have four hours and foury-eight minutes left before the Gaians can obtain a hard detect, so we have that long to plan out our attack. They already made a soft detect over three days ago, and based on recent observations from our telescopes and sensor platforms, we suspect that they may already be preparing for a possible attack. We have to conduct this while attempting to minimise casualties, and unleash as much damage as possible. So, gentlemen, it is time to look at our options. What do we have?”

“At the moment” Cdr. Kalinin said “We have our usual formation of a balanced number of spacecraft for each Task Group, Constellation and Delta. However, that was when the Task Force was originally established prior to the Battle of Thebe. So, we have 1 spacecraft of each type for each Delta, sir. This gives us at least 3 options.”

“And those are?” asked Guskov, wondering at what his proposal might bring of use to Task Force 12.

“Option #1 would be to launch the drones at a precise point along our approach before the battle, and when we engage, strike the Gaians from behind as we conduct a return trajectory to Ganymede, use the drones to inflict heavy casualties and then finish them off. Option #2 would be to fire our coilguns at a precise point similar to option #1 and use the slugs as “mines” and then launch the drones around a similar precise point, and use them as an advance. This will limit their capability to manoeuvre and if the drones are lucky, will leave them in tatters. Option #3 will involve approaching from behind Carpo, as depicted in Option #1, but the option is also a risky one. In the second option, depending on our distance, our computer systems may not give a firing solution in an efficient manner, and the drones may be stopped in their tracks by enemy SDeVs in most options.”

“So.” said Guskov. “I am looking at 3 options, all with a certain probability of failure. If we conduct the first two options, we get detected early, and the third option may involve getting close.”

“So, it is either get detected early…” said Cdr. Lazarev.

“......Or attempt a suicide run.” Toparev spoke as he interrupted and finished his fellow officer’s statement.

“Yes” Kalinin said darkly. He then continued in a more formal tone. “So, Lt. Marshall? Do we risk early detection in one of two ways or attempt a suicide run? Pick your poison.” Guskov sat in silence with a pensive scowl, as the officers waited with disciplined patience as the old (by Ganymedean standards), but battle-hardened master tactician formulated his plan.

“I have considered all the options”. He spoke after three minutes. “Despite the high risk, we will take the final option, but only because of three reasons: one, this mission needs to maintain the element of surprise until the last minute, two, our computer systems would have to be at the outer limits of our range to get a firing solution, and three, this option gives room to improvise.”

“Lt. Marshall” spoke Cdr. Abdulov in a concerned tone, while maintaining any signs of respect. “I would advise against this decision. Since, you mentioned at the beginning of this conference that you wanted ‘minimal casualties’, yet you accept a plan that could lead to a massacre for not only the Gaians (assuming this risky manoeuvre works), but to us as well. If this manoeuvre works or fails, it would reduce us to either 1 SDV or none at all, depending on success.”

“Commander” spoke Toparev in an attempt to counter his argument, with a base in superior combat experience as per the Battle of Thebe and the Siege of Pywill Crater on Europa. “With all due respect, it is either this or risk losing our drones to 4 SDeVs, and have the Gaians expecting an attack. It also has room to improve, as per Lt. Marshall Guskov’s mentioned reasons. So, I could support this, with a partial implementation of Option #2 in an optimistic scenario.”

The rest of the Commanders agreed, with the sole exception of Tomenko, who supported Abdulov’s argument, and the decision was made: Option 3 would be implemented, but in an optimistic scenario, the partial implementation of Option 2 would be conducted. Whether they lived or died was now up to them.

***
Lt. Cdr. Alexandra Solomon Reed was supervising one of the habitation nodules onboard the UNSDV Beowulf, when she was called to the CIC while the rebel Task Force entered the identification phase. She rushed as fast as she could to HabModule 1, and to the CIC. Vice Marshall Ramirez and Cdr. Schneider were already waiting when Reed got there.

“Well, Marshall?” She spoke in a rather hurried tone. “Is it confirmed?”

“Yes” said Vice Marshall Ramirez in an accented English in a calm but informative tone in his voice. “Turns out, it is worse than we initially expected.”

“What!?” she snapped immediately. “What exactly am I looking at in their composition?”

“Apparently, six SDVs, two of each type.” said Schneider in German. “Remember Thebe?”

“Yes, I remember” she replied in German, unconcerned initially. “What about it?” Schneider displayed the ship types on the CIC’s tactical information display, along with all the data about them. Reed’s face turned blank, and then began to display worry.

“Task Force 12” Reed said darkly. “Shit….they were twelve of those SDVs in my previous confrontation. I see they haven’t fully recovered.”

“Well, whatever it is worth, we better get ready.” spoke Schneider in German, attempting to be cautious.

“Agreed” spoke Ramirez. He then muttered in Spanish: “If we fail….God help us all.”
***
Toparev had entered the CIC when they the UNAPA Task Force started passing Carpo on their approach, as per the optimistic scenario planned 5 days ago, in the nick of time. They had only to approach from a certain angle, and once they are within range of the targeting computers, open fire. So, he and the rest are ready. He turned to Comm-Lt. Davidenko.

“Davidenko” he told him as he got inside. “Where are they in their current trajectory?”

“Sir.” Comm-Lt. Davidenko spoke. “The enemy is already making a pass by Carpo on their trajectory. Within the next two minutes, we will be making our manoeuvre.”

“Perfect.” Cdr. Toparev replied, who then chuckled. He turned to Combat-Lt. Aliyev after transmitting via laser communications Davidenko’s findings.

“Aliyev!” he alerted the Lieutenant. “Deploy kinetic mines.”

“Understood, Commander!” he responded in kind.

The kinetic mines were deployed into the trajectory UNAPA was going to take as they approached Carpo. Carpo was a very uninhabited moon with little of note. It was three kilometres in diameter and they were a few dozen kilometres in distance relative to it, and by the time those mines were deployed, Task Force 12 was already in the process of conducting its approach.

Task Force 12 began conducting the manoeuvre, retracted the primary radiators, and their primary engines began to roar. In reality, these engines would not be heard in a vacuum, but the “roaring”was felt by the crew as the engines began their work. Of course, the manoeuvre took some time to complete with the primary engines, despite their deceleration having recently finished earlier, and then they began their approach.
***
Meanwhile, the UNSDV Beowulf had detected the manoeuvre and the craft, along with the rest of the Task Force’s SDVs prepared for combat and the SCVs were given the order to take evasive manoeuvres.

“Sir!” spoke Rec-Lt. Zhang to Cdr. Schneider in German with the tone in his voice serving as an alert. “We have incoming bogies and several mines on our trajectory.”

“Damn it.” Schneider spoke to himself, trying to hide his emotions. “We have to pick our vectors carefully.”

Ramirez entered the CIC and turned to Schneider.

“Commander” he spoke with an authoritarian voice. “Status report.”

“We have a minefield and multiple enemies on approach” Schneider reported to Ramirez.

“Well then.” Ramirez replied in a confident tone. “If they want a fight, we can give them one they will never leave alive.” He activated the craft’s radio transmitter.

“All craft, I have two orders: one, avoid those mines at all costs and two, ready your weapons…...” he spoke into the radio and awaited for the weapons to be within range of the computer systems. The computer gave the firing solution a few moments later.“ ….and FIRE!”

The coilguns in each SOV fired their kinetic slugs out the barrels and at a high speed, they were sent flying into the enemy.
***
“Incoming enemy fire!” said Comm-Lt. Ivchenko on the BKK Reaper’s CIC as UNAPA fired its coilguns.

“All craft” spoke Guskov over the radio, calm but authoritarian as always. “Launch 30 drones, 2 each hostile craft and RETURN FIRE!”

Task Force 12’s own kinetic slugs fired out the barrels and at high speed. However, the drones were also being launched, and they used their main stages, all gas core nuclear thermal engines, to accelerate in the direction of the enemy and change their trajectory.

The enemy drone carriers later on launched their drones and the two sides had their drones and kinetic slugs flying past them, with each side’s pilots trying their best to avoid damage or destruction.
***
After nearly 9 to 10 minutes, the drones began their approach, and depleted their main stage propellant. The fairings were separated, and the terminal attack stages were decoupled from the main stage. As they approached, the stages were within range of the SDeVs, which partially opened the combat mirrors and fired their lasers. These lasers, however, were not visible at all. In fact, the beams, even in visible light would never be visible outside an atmosphere. They were fired at 20 km of distance from the approach of the stages and within seconds, many of those stages were destroyed and those that were not, slammed into the enemy craft, either directly or after a period of course corrections. When it did, though…..BOOM!
***
The alerts flashed on the tactical operations screen of the CIC, with the UNSDV Lazarus, the UNSCV Harry Truman, the UNSDV Shieldbearer, the UNSDV Nikolai Rhyzkov, the UNSDV Colossus and the UNSDV Robert Oppenheimer all physically obliterated by the sheer kinetic energy of a few simple tungsten rods. Ramirez, Schneider and Reed were all there in the bridge, the first who then spoke.

“All craft, casualty report.” he spoke via the radio transmitters.

“Vice Marshall” spoke Cdr. Mei of the UNSDV Tokugawa. “We lost at least 50% of our forces. We still have 2 SCVs left, but we have taken heavy losses.”

“Damn it” said Reed in the background. Ramirez then spoke.

“Gentlemen, we have several mines incoming and a rebel Task Force closing in. I want all remaining craft to initiate evasive manoeuvres and fire all available weapons. Whatever you do, keep firing and do not stop for any reason other than friendly fire. Got it?”

“Understood Vice Marshall.” spoke Cdr. David of the UNSDV Leviathan and the rest of the Task Force’s SDeVs and SOVs. The engines roared and they began their combat manoeuvre, all while trying to avoid the mines ahead. And it was not easy trying to avoid those mines and maintain a good approach angle.
***
At the same time, the CIC onboard the BKK Death Dragon was flaring up with casualty reports, as the terminal attack stages released by hostile drones made sure that the damages could wipe out the BKK Reaper, the BKK Fireball and the BKK Hellfire. The ECM and the SDeVs were able to keep them off, but things were not looking good.

“Sir!” Davidenko spoke. His tone then turned to concern. “We lost the BKK Reaper.”

“Crap!” Cdr. Toparev replied in frustration. He did not consider the circumstances, but given the craft is physically destroyed, the likely scenario was that the Lieutenant Marshall was either reduced to particles or is a floating corpse in the vacuum of space, surrounded by lethal shrapnel and space junk. The battle-hardened veteran then cleared his head.

“Gentlemen?” he spoke before the CIC and the rest of the crew. He then turned to the radio transmitter. “This is Lt. Marshall Yuri Mikhailovich Toparev. I am currently taking command of the remaining craft of Task Force 12. I want all survivors to report.”

“BKK Strength of Jupiter reporting.” Abdulov said via the radio transmitters.

“BKK Hand of Svarog, awaiting orders.” Kalinin said via the radio transmitters.

“Then I have new orders” Toparev replied via the radio transmitter.

“Sir!” Davidenko barked to Toparev.”We have multiple bogies beginning their attack run!” Toparev turned away from the radio transmitter for a few moments.

“Well, then…..” he said confidently and turned back to the radio transmitter. “All craft, initiate combat manoeuvres and ready all weapons.” He then turned to the Vice Commander “Savvin? The BKK Death Dragon is yours now—Commander.”

“Understood, Lieutenant Marshall.” he replied with a crisp military salute. “You can count on me to lead us out alive.”

“I trust you will, Commander.” Toparev replied. “Now, contact the bridge in the Command Module. We need those engines running to engage the enemy. Lt. Aliyev, are we within range?”

“Yes, Commander.” he replied. “Specifically, we are talking at a range of 15,000 km and getting closer. That is the majority of the enemy craft, all SDVs, whereas the remaining SCVs and hostile Drone Carriers are attempting to stay behind.”

“Alright, good enough.” he replied to Aliyev. He then began to give orders to the fleet. “All weapons, fire on my signal.”

The craft on both sides began their next approach, even with dozens of depleted uranium slugs of ammunition (with their shrapnel) being affected by the ECM systems while their engines roared in order to get a precise approach vector and then fire their volleys of ammunition. It took them some time, of course, as they approached a distance of 5,000 km relative to each other, they began to aim their coilguns at each other, and when they did, the barrages of ammunition began to be released from their coilguns, Over a period of four minutes, the two sides would begin to receive the opponent’s barrage of weapons fire, and their ECM systems and the SDeVs would do everything to keep them away from the craft. These slugs were a problem, especially when they used a shrapnel shell-type method.
***
The CIC aboard the UNSDV Beowulf began blaring up as casualty reports from other craft began coming in. The destruction of the UNSDV Leviathan, UNSDV Tartarus, UNSDV Allah’s Shield, and the UNSDV Gaia’s Protector were reported as they began to receive the enemy’s barrage of weapons fire. The rebels were approaching and they began to fly past their last SOV with a close approach of at least 980 metres. They then began slowly drifting away from the enemy.

“Well, that was close.” remarked Battle-Lt. Al-Ahdal in Arabic. He turned to Cdr. Schneider and switched to German.“We better prepare, Commander.”

“Good idea.” Cdr. Schneider replied in German. “We might have to worry about another attack run.”

“Sir!” said Rec-Lt. Zhang in Spanish to Vice Marshall Ramirez as he finished calculating their trajectory. “They are going for a strike run on the drone carriers and SCVs!”

“Without the SCVs...” Vice Marshall Ramirez thought to himself. “....we may not be able to reinforce Callisto, which means any hopes to retake the Jovian System will be dashed.” He then began barking orders. “All craft, turn around and initiate intercept course! Keep them away from the SCVs and our drone carriers!”
***
Lt. Marshall Toparev gave the order to deploy additional mines to delay the enemy when they began approaching the SCVs and the Drone Carriers. The latter began launching the drones as they approached a distance of 30,000 km, and after a few minutes they were (narrowly) avoided, at the cost of the BKK Hand of Svarog. As they approached and reached a distance of 14,000 km, they began to fire their volleys of munition at the carriers. However, because of the distance, they had to use their guidance stages. But of course, Drone Carriers had ECM systems designed to counter the terminal attack stages of a drone and it was the very design of those ECM systems that proved to be their demise as the coilguns opened fire and the depleted uranium slugs with their shrapnel tore them apart.

Toparev smiled as the visuals caught on to the destruction of both craft and they began to shatter and break apart. The “explosions” were not really very fiery and the actual ones were actually occurring inside the pressurised modules and away from the sections near the vacuum. In other modules, it was simply them breaking like pieces of blocks falling down on someone, and before then, the two were reduced to space junk.

As they approached the 5,000 km range, they began to fire in a more clear direction, but the enemy was on high-speed approach. Toparev had to think and quickly.

“Sir. we have hostiles on high-speed approach to our position.” spoke Davidenko to Savvin.

“Lt. Marshall!” Savvin told Toparev in a concerned tone and somewhat loud voice. He then went with a more calm tone.“We have two choices: engage the enemy on our tail and let the SCVs proceed to Callisto or we take out the SCVs and stop them for good.”

“So” Toparev replied darkly. “Either sacrifice victory for Ganymede’s freedom or Ganymede’s freedom for victory.”

“Unfortunately so.” Savvin told Toparev. Toparev then began thinking. After a few minutes, as the enemy got closer and closer, he had to make a choice: to die a hero or live a coward’s life. He then sighed and made his decision very clear.

“Gentlemen” Toparev spoke. “Fire all weapons at the enemy SCVs.”

“Understood” replied Davidenko. “We are going to die for this, obviously. But it was honour to serve with you, Toparev.”

“The same feelings to you, and the rest of Task Force 12, Davidenko.” replied Toparev with a tone that expressed a sense of hope and loss at the same time, but felt he finally got his wish.

The BKK Death Dragon began to fire its volleys at the SCVs when they were 3,000 km from them. The craft then began to turn around with its RCS Thrusters and aim at the enemy. The coilguns began firing as the SCVs attempted their evasive manoeuvres. However, no ECM systems or point defence means they were vulnerable. As they began to take hits, they began to break apart and become space junk orbiting Jupiter, having achieved escape velocity from the tiny moon. The BKK Strength of Jupiter attempted to stop the enemy’s barrages of depleted uranium rounds and their shrapnel, but even the BKK Strength of Jupiter would not last long.
***
“Sir!” Zhang said in a rather concerned manner. “The SCVs are gone!”

“Damn it.” Ramirez thought in his head and he turned to the radio transmitter. “All craft. The SCVs are gone, as your sensors and visuals might notice. However, if they win, we will make sure that they never enjoy their victory. Now, all craft, FIRE EVERYTHING!”

They began to fire their volleys of ammunition. 30 seconds later, the UNSDV Beowulf was gone.
***
The barrages of hostile munitions approached the BKK Death Dragon, and the ECM systems were beginning to become incapable of keeping up. As they approached within 2,000 km of the nearest hostile spacecraft, the CIC began to break apart, and the explosions began to occur within the HabModules. Within minutes, Toparev was no longer inside HabModule 1 but rapidly speeding away from the wreckage and into the vacuum. Within the 15 seconds of consciousness Toparev had, he did not panic, nor did he gasp for air in short bursts. He stared at the surface of Carpo with Jupiter behind it smiling calmly, feeling at peace as his consciousness faded and his systems stopped functioning. His vision went to black in that short period of time, and within 2 minutes, everything else stopped functioning. Before they knew it, this battlefield became the tomb of Task Force 12, but by then, they had left their mark in history.








Only the dead have seen the end of war.” - George Santayana

Be warned: any indent errors can be fixed at a later time. Until then....well, you get the idea. :/
Hard Science Fiction Cadet Author and Ready to Stomp Handwavium
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#2
Thanks for this. I'll aim to reread it in the next day or three and provide feedback.

ToddSmile
Reply
#3
Thoughts and comments below, along with suggested edits in bold.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: More than a century ago, the Solar System was set ablaze as colonies declared their sovereignty from Earth. Our people, when they first settled these worlds and established the colonies, had new hopes, new dreams, and new lives waiting to be built. These were eventually shattered, not only by a rapidly solidifying Earth, but also by the greed of many men. It was not one particular breed of men. It was many breeds of people and organisations. This meant corporations, national entities, politicians on the colonies, and like us, they all had their own goals and dreams. Then one day, those politicians on the colonies had found life’s bottleneck: phosphorous in vast quantities on certain moons of various gas giants, on Deimos, and in many asteroids in the Belt and some of the Trojan objects. In an instant, we had gone from territories administered by separate national entities on Earth and (in recent years) its de-facto military force since the various terror attacks of the 2370s, the United Nations Authority on Planetary Affairs (UNAPA) to various independent states which would not only compete against each other, but against Earth as well. The stories of the First and Second Extraplanetary Wars and the Interbellum between are many. These are some of them, including my grandfather’s, my mother’s and finally, my own.” - Ching Wei, Clash of the Worlds: Stories of the First Extraplanetary War, Introduction
***

This already reads better as an excerpt from another workSmile I've made some suggested changes in bold. The underlined section is a bit of a jumble - you sort of jump around a bit and leave out some connecting words and information - read it thru, slow down and adjust and/or add text to make complete and coherent sentences. Also, you may want to either drop the mention of terrorist attacks, provide a little more explanation, or replace that bit with a mention of whatever events led to the terrorist attacks in the first place. Terror attacks don't just happen for no reason, but are the result of people making a decision to carry them out for one reason or another. So, what was the reason and can you plug that in here without getting bogged down in details or expanding this small intro bit to larger than you really want for a small intro bit?

On a different note - while phosphorus is apparently rare in the solar system (per a bit of quick googling), such that the discovery of same would probably be important you don't really explain why or how this would have such a large impact. Does the discovery threaten or break some kind of monopoly? Lead to economic disruption? Something else? As you're doing this, bear in mind that just finding a rare and (presumably) valuable substance in space isn't going to matter much if there isn't any means or infrastructure in place (or put in place) to access and exploit it. So, how did people (or their robots) go about getting out to where the phosphorus was, mining it, and getting it back to somewhere where it could be used? Etc.

Finally, what is this battle/war actually about? The ships from Earth are coming to reinforce Terran troops already in the Jovian system - ok. But why are they in the jovian system in the first place? Putting down rebellion? Supporting a rebellion? Something else?

Oh, and why are there Russians around Jupiter and apparently no one else from any other country?

Again, the trick is to get this information to your reader without generating a whole lot of extra verbiage. So think in terms of an informative sentence or two rather than paragraphs of exposition. Ok, moving on...

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Gentlemen, the situation has started to become more desperate than it already was.” spoke a man in Ganyrstrovian, a dialect of Russian, through the holoscreen. “The Gaians have already deployed reinforcements to assist their remaining troops in the Jovian system, and we have been suspecting of this for the past two months.”

“Agreed” spoke another man in the Operations Centre. “And we have only confirmed it three days ago, when the task force began deceleration burn.”

“Any destinations that we are looking at?” the man in the holoscreen asked.

“We have been able to accurately locate it within the past month” spoke a different high-ranking officer at the left of the board representing a 3D holographic display of the Solar System. “And they are heading to reinforce Callisto. However, we do have a plan to intercept the hostile fleet and cripple or destroy it.”

Various bits here:

1) Is Ganyrstrovian a real dialect of Russian or one you've made up for the story? Perhaps one originating on Ganymede? If so, perhaps include that here so the reader gets a bit more info on this and isn't left wondering. Or just say they are speaking Russian and don't drill down to the level of dialects as it is not relevant to the story and doesn't provide any relevant 'extra color'.

2) It's a bit iffy that these people would only 'suspect' that the Gaians have launched an expedition. As discussed earlier, stealth in space is pretty much impossible where waste heat is concerned, especially over a period of months. The more so if the attacking fleet used fusion drives (as we learn later) and boosted up to a speed to get them to Jupiter in any reasonable amount of time.

If flights too/from the Jovian system are reasonably common (or maybe even if they aren't), and you want an element of surprise in all this, I'd suggest having the attack be suspected, but also a surprise. Specifically, the Jovians have figured some kind of attack was coming but didn't know what/when. Then one of their remote satellites/drones/something else notes odd behavior on some incoming ships and looks more closely to discover they are the attack fleet. The attackers might have the ships disguised as civilian/routine craft, including fake hulls and transponders, for example. Only as they approach the jovian system do they jettison the hulls, which gets the attention of someone (which wasn't expected or deemed likely by the attackers), which leads to a closer look, which gets us to this point here.

Or something like that. Instead of stealth, rely on sneakiness in some form.

3) The timing seems strange here. If they've suspected some kind of attack for months, and confirmed that such is coming three days ago, why are they only having this meeting now? I realize that interplanetary distances and speeds result in a whole different form of military operations, but this still seems a bit...relaxed for a response to an incoming invasion. More generally, it might be good to give some indication or passing mention of the capabilities of your spacecraft (acceleration, speed of travel) during the course of the story. This need not be a big info-dump, just stuff in passing (e.g., Ship X began boosting hard, its straining drives accelerating it at a full tenth of a G OR 'We'll be in interception range in 16 hours...etc.).

On a related note, if they just detected the deceleration burn three days ago, how could they know where the incoming fleet is going for the last month? Especially since they only suspected an attack for the last two months.

4) Finally, you have one man communicating via a holoscreen to a man in the 'Operations Center', and then another man replying to both of them with additional info. But the first man apparently isn't in the OC (because he's using a screen) and you only mention that the last man in high ranking, but do it in a way that indicates they are all high ranking and all in the same room together. This is a bit confusing and I'd suggest tweaking things a bit.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “And what exactly is this ‘plan’?” the man in the holoscreen asked the officer. The officer then zoomed onto Jupiter and the board displayed a map of the Jovian system. The officer then pointed to the tiny moon called Carpo on it.

“See that tiny speck?” the officer asked his superior. “That moon is where we will intercept and defeat the task force. A conventional Hohmann transfer is not an option, so we may have to do with a Brachistochrone Transfer. We can intercept them in about nine days.”

“Good. Any available task forces in the area?” the man in the holoscreen asked before the officer.

1) If a Hohmann transfer is not an option, then it would seem that there is no 'may' involved in doing a Brachistochrone transfer. Also, while I believe that a Hohmann transfer is named after a person (and so is ok to capitalize), I don't think you need to capitalized Brachistochrone.

2) If there were no available task forces in the area, would they be having this conversation? More generally, the defenders seem very calm and laid back about the incoming attack by a presumably superior force.

Perhaps make the question more general (what forces do we have available to intercept?) and add some words or short descriptions to indicated the stress level (the smell of old coffee, old sweat, and tension filled the room).

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “We do have one. It’s very small task force, but they are one of the best. Task Force 12. It currently has six functioning SDVs, two of each type. This means drone carriers, SOVs and SDeVs.

This is something I flashed on last night when I was planning to sit down and work on this. You are very heavy on the initials in this story, but don't explain what they mean. What is a SDV, SOV, or SDeV? These terms get thrown around a lot, but you don't say what the names are or what the difference is between each type of craft. As this continues thru the story, and especially during combat when you are describing different craft doing different things, it gets very hard for the reader to get a picture of what is going on (or to care about it) and eventually they may just give up altogether and stop reading.

At the very least I would suggest providing the full names that these acronyms stand for when you first introduce them and then use the letters moving forward. Perhaps even use the full names from time to time thru the story. You might even want to replace these terms with something the reader is more familiar with (and can instantly visualize as different types of ships) such as 'cruiser', 'destroyer', etc. Or use made up terms that make it clear which is which. Or a mix of real and made up.

Drone carrier is pretty self-explanatory and is fine to keep, however.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “I doubt that your plan could work, but I suppose we have no other option. Marshall Makhrov, I am authorising your plan, although I will mention that your plan is risky and dangerous. The probability of success might depend on twelve.”

“Thank you, Planetary Marshall. I will commence preparations immediately.” spoke Marshall Makhrov as the Planetary Marshall shut off his holoscreen.

Since there is no discussion of any other alternatives, how does the Planetary Marshall jump to this conclusion? Does it seem likely that Makhrov doesn't know the plan is risky and dangerous and needs to be told? For that matter, what is particularly risky and dangerous (btw do we need both terms that mean basically the same thing?) about this plan? We aren't told.

You don't need to run through an explanation of a bunch of other plans. Rather, have something along the lines of the question of alternatives being raised and a character explaining there's no other/better option. Or have the the Planetary Marshall come into the meeting stating he's already been told there are no other alternatives and Makhrov and Co. are to explain the details of this one. A few more details beyond 'we are going to intercept them at this point' would probably also be good. What is the plan, basically?

Finally, suggest changing the rank of one or the other to a different term. The use of Marshall and Planetary Marshall so close together is a bit confusing.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote:
***
The BKK Drakon Smerti (Death Dragon), and 5 other spacecraft: the BKK Ognennyy Shar (Fireball), the BKK Zhnets (Reaper), the BKK Adskyi Ogoni (Hellfire), the BKK Sila Yupitera (Strength of Jupiter), and the BKK Ruka Svaroga (Hand of Svarog), had already been en route to Carpo for over 4 days when planning of the actual battle began onboard the BKK Death Dragon.

What does BKK stand for?

Also, suggest either using the Russian names or the English names, but not both. Stating the Russian names here and then not using them for the entire rest of the story feels strange. [/quote]

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: The craft was massive, but tiny compared to even a small naval craft from Earth, with two habitat modules spinning around the craft, with each module rotating twice every minute, which would fold into the craft accelerates and and with the spacecraft itself powered by a fusion reactor. The craft had a fusion drive, a cluster of three nuclear thermal engines, and was equipped with several coilguns to strike a hostile craft on its horizontal and vertical sides, two for each side. The craft also had 4 primary radiators capable of being concealed in the battlefield, Between the engines and the reactor there was a spherical-like object that spun on itself as the craft moved and boiled liquid metal to radiate waste heat. It was called a Bubble Membrane Radiator.

Ok, queue Mission Impossible music -

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to go through the paragraph above and reduce the number of instances of the word 'craft' from its current level (8) down to only three (or fewer). You can use synonyms, alternative phrases, or rewrite sentences or the whole thing to do it, but the goal is only three (or fewer) instances of the word craft, preferably separated by as much of the rest of the text as possible.

Ok, I've got to go get started on my day. More later as time permits.

Hope this helps,

Todd
Reply
#4
And picking up where we left off...

General thought - I'd suggest adding in the dimensions of the Death Dragon - you say it's small but impressive - but without a statement of size or shape, it's hard for the reader to get a sense of what this means. A diagram or sketch with dimensions would be cool, but possibly hard to come by. Anyway.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: It was an example of a typical Glushko-class SOV from the early 24th Century, but this Glushko-class SOV had been manufactured with its internal systems upgraded to fit the technology of 2394, and with the replacement of outdated parts and pieces in the internal components of the craft.

Still, it was a very impressive SOV compared to the SDeVs and drone carriers, all retrofitted Heavy Planetary Transportation Vehicles or HPTVs for short, and the low gravity (by Earth standards) generated by the spin habitats was not a concern to its thirty-man crew, genetically engineered to the lower gravity of Ganymede, not even to Commander Yuri Mikhailovich Torapev.

Are you saying the Death Dragon was built in the early 24th century and then upgraded over time or that the design dates back that far? Also, it's not clear how it is impressive compared to the other ships. Finally, I'm not sure that we need to be told that the other ships are retrofitted HPTVs. It's not clear what this adds to the story, unless you mention something about them being refitted in a hurry or under stress or something else to add drama to the overall story. Regardless of what you do here, suggested removing the abbreviation 'HPTV'. It isn't used again and just adds to the letter salad.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: The Commander was an experienced, battle-hardened spacecraft commander with experiences in the art of military tactics and spacecraft operations, the former ever since he first read the works of Sun-Tsu and analysed the tactics used by the various great powers of history. As a Commander, he wanted to provide the crew and anyone in his command an opportunity to be flexible and to be able to adapt, unlike the majority of his more authoritarian and “by the book”-style superiors and fellow officers. Of course, Toparev was not excluded from this, as even he was a very authoritarian man when it came to obeying the orders of his superiors. Still, this principle helped lead to the successes in Thebe and in Pywill Crater and he hoped, since they left for Carpo, that this would lead them to success. However, if there is one thing he wanted to know aside from what he already knew, it was the knowledge of feeling that he meant something to people. If it meant being anonymous or known, then let it be so, he said once as an adolescent back on Ganymede. He kept that when he first joined as part of the Soviet Cosmonaut Expeditionary Force, before the attacks forced UNAPA to take control, and before the war. Things changed, but the ideal remained.

So various things here:

1) You use 'command' and 'Commander' multiple times throughout this paragraph. As with the use of 'craft', suggest you thin this out quite a bit, using other words or rewriting bits to cut this back.

2) Much of what is talked about here is self-referential. He is a commander because he commands, he knows tactics because he studied tactics, his approach to command has led to success, so hopefully it will again, etc.

3) Suggest you expand his resume a bit. Currently he's a great commander because he commands and his only stated experience with tactics is reading a book. Suggest you include (brief) mention of years of experience with ever greater responsibility, combat experience, etc.

4) You mention past events without saying what they are or why they matter. In particular the attacks that led him to join the 'Soviet Cosmonaut Expeditionary Force'. I think I know what you're going for here, and if details on this are going to come out during the story, that's fine. But be sure not to wait too long to explain this to your reader.

5) I'm assuming that in your alternative timeline the Soviet Union still exists in the 25th century? Since otherwise the name 'Soviet Cosmonaut Expeditionary Force' doesn't really work. Depending on your intended audience, you may need to work in something so that the reader knows that this is an alternative history future.

6) On a more general note, I see that you're trying to flesh out the character, but this needs some polishing. It reads a bit too stiff currently. Try to add in more bits about the character's personal life and feelings.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: Toparev was already sleeping in the Commander’s Quarters when Chief Exo Officer Voloshyn knocked on the door to wake him.

“Come in!” Toparev said in Ganyrstrovian Russian as he woke up from his sleep, and in a rather grumpy tone in his voice.

“Commander!” Voloshyn spoke in a hurried fashion. “Lt. Marshall Guskov wants you in the CIC now.”

Toparev sighed for a moment. He spoke, still grumpy and with his eyes still barely open:

“What does he need now, Voloshyn?”

“Apparently” Voloshyn replied. “They are getting ready for the conference.”

He's the commander of a major warship, or possibly the entire task force (this isn't clear btw), and he doesn't already know when an important meeting is taking place? Suggest tweaking this to either have him already up and ready to go or to have the meeting be an emergency/surprise due to the incoming invasion force.

Also, you can remove the reference to what language he's speaking.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “I'll be there.” He said in a calmer tone, rising and reaching for his uniform.

Toparev left his cabin and went down to the CIC in HabModule 1
, passing via the corridors of the spin habitat trying to get there.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the last part of the second sentence. Why would he have difficulty getting to the CIC such that he is 'trying' to get there?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: He arrived at the CIC with all of its personnel conducting all sorts of activities, from analysing trajectories, to checking radiator temperature, to communicating between other craft, even making managing the computers and making sure they provide a good firing solution when in combat. The other Commanders and Lt. Marshall Guskov were all displayed in the holoscreen, opting to commence. Toparev stood before them, and greeted them with a salute.

When describing the activity in the CIC, are you aiming to show normal operations or is this an unusual level of activity? This bit needs some word changes, but the form they take will depend on the answer to this question to some degree.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Commanders.” spoke Guskov in Ganyrstrovian Russian with a tone equivalent to a man of authority and respect. “We have four hours and foury-eight minutes left before the Gaians can obtain a hard detect, so we have that long to plan out our attack. They already made a soft detect over three days ago, and based on recent observations from our telescopes and sensor platforms, we suspect that they may already be preparing for a possible attack. We have to conduct this while attempting to minimise casualties, and unleash as much damage as possible. So, gentlemen, it is time to look at our options. What do we have?”

1) Remove the reference to the language used.

2) Are you saying Guskov is using the wrong tone? That he is not respected and has no authority? That his view of himself is at odds with the view of others as to how much authority and respect he is due? Something else? This bit is confusing.

3) What is a 'hard detect' and a 'soft detect'?

4) Given the earlier discussion re stealth in space and the lack thereof, this bit may require some tweaking, but I'm not sure yet.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “At the moment” Cdr. Kalinin said “We have our usual formation of a balanced number of spacecraft for each Task Group, Constellation and Delta. However, that was when the Task Force was originally established prior to the Battle of Thebe. So, we have 1 spacecraft of each type for each Delta, sir. This gives us at least 3 options.”

What is this person actually saying here? In particular, why are two task groups mentioned initially and then only Delta? How many ships did they have originally vs now, since you are implying they are operating with reduced forces?

Please tell me what is being said here in your own words. This needs adjusting in some fashion, but I need to know what is going on before I can figure out exactly what advice to give.

Ok, gotta start the day. More later.

Todd
Reply
#5
Round Three....

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “And those are?” asked Guskov, wondering at what his proposal might bring of use to Task Force 12.

This sentence isn't quite correct, grammatically. I assume you mean that Guskov is wondering if Kalinin's proposal will be useful to the Task Force. If so, the wording needs a bit of adjustment. I'd actually suggest removing the bit about what Guskov is wondering.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Option #1 would be to launch the drones at a precise point along our approach before the battle, and when we engage, strike the Gaians from behind as we conduct a return trajectory to Ganymede, use the drones to inflict heavy casualties and then finish them off. Option #2 would be to fire our coilguns at a precise point similar to option #1 and use the slugs as “mines” and then launch the drones around a similar precise point, and use them as an advance. This will limit their capability to manoeuvre and if the drones are lucky, will leave them in tatters. Option #3 will involve approaching from behind Carpo, as depicted in Option #1, but the option is also a risky one. In the second option, depending on our distance, our computer systems may not give a firing solution in an efficient manner, and the drones may be stopped in their tracks by enemy SDeVs in most options.”

Suggest breaking up the options so that each has its own paragraph. This will make them easier to read.

Also, Option 3 mentions Option 1, but it's not clear what the connection is. The strategies described in each option seem to be rather different.

As mentioned in our earlier discussion, it's not clear what a 'firing solution' is or why it would be needed, given advances in computer hardware and software and the use of heat sensors and such to let attacking drones home in on their targets. This may be an area to discuss with the OA forum on general principles if you need help figuring out how this might work.

Finally, it's not really clear how such a small moon as Carpo would be sufficient to hide the fleet for any length of time, especially since the incoming UN forces can see the ships long before they get to Carpo, especially if they are using a continuous boost (brachistochrone) method to reach it.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “So.” said Guskov. “I am looking at 3 options, all with a certain probability of failure. If we conduct the first two options, we get detected early, and the third option may involve getting close.”

“So, it is either get detected early…” said Cdr. Lazarev.

“......Or attempt a suicide run.” Toparev spoke as he interrupted and finished his fellow officer’s statement.

It's not really clear that 'getting close' = 'suicide run' from this brief exchange. It also feels a little repetitive in that Guskov states the issues (early detection or getting close) and then Lazarev and Toparev essentially repeat it, or start to.

Suggest expanding on or explaining this a bit more so it is clearer to the reader why Option 3 = suicide mission, while the other two options do not.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Yes” Kalinin said darkly. He then continued in a more formal tone. “So, Lt. Marshall? Do we risk early detection in one of two ways or attempt a suicide run? Pick your poison.” Guskov sat in silence with a pensive scowl, as the officers waited with disciplined patience as the old (by Ganymedean standards), but battle-hardened master tactician formulated his plan.

What does being old 'by Ganymedean standards' actually mean? Do Ganymedeans have shorter lifespans than people from elsewhere in the solar system? If so, why?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “I have considered all the options”. He spoke after three minutes. “Despite the high risk, we will take the final option, but only because of three reasons: one, this mission needs to maintain the element of surprise until the last minute, two, our computer systems would have to be at the outer limits of our range to get a firing solution, and three, this option gives room to improvise.”

It's not really clear or explained how Option 3 solves any of these issues or has any of these features more than the other two options listed.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Lt. Marshall” spoke Cdr. Abdulov in a concerned, but respectful, tone, “I would advise against this decision. You mentioned at the beginning of this conference that you wanted ‘minimal casualties’, yet you accept a plan that could lead to a massacre for not only the Gaians (assuming this risky manoeuvre works), but for us as well. If this manoeuvre works or fails, it would reduce us to either 1 SDV or none at all, depending on success.”

The last sentence here doesn't seem to have any connection to the rest of the discussion. How is this option going to result in this outcome regardless of whether it succeeds or fails?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Commander” spoke Toparev in an attempt to counter his argument, with a base in superior combat experience as per the Battle of Thebe and the Siege of Pywill Crater on Europa. “With all due respect, it is either this or risk losing our drones to 4 SDeVs, and have the Gaians expecting an attack. It also has room to improve, as per Lt. Marshall Guskov’s mentioned reasons. So, I could support this, with a partial implementation of Option #2 in an optimistic scenario.”

Since the reader doesn't know much of anything about these two prior battles, using them as justification for Toparev's superior combat experience is very much an informed ability. We're told about it rather than shown. What did Toparev do at these battles to make us think his judgement is superior to this other person's? Speaking of which, what combat experience does the other person have for comparison.

Also, how does Toparev know that they will be facing '4 SDeVs'? Unless I missed it, to this point, we've heard nothing about the size of the UN force.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: The rest of the Commanders agreed, with the sole exception of Tomenko, who supported Abdulov’s argument, and the decision was made: Option 3 would be implemented, but in an optimistic scenario, the partial implementation of Option 2 would be conducted. Whether they lived or died was now up to them.

***
Lt. Cdr. Alexandra Solomon Reed was supervising one of the habitation nodules onboard the UNSDV Beowulf, when the rebel Task Force entered the identification phase and she was called to the CIC. She rushed as fast as she could to HabModule 1, and to the CIC. Vice Marshall Ramirez and Cdr. Schneider were already waiting when Solomon Reed got there.

“Well, Marshall?” She spoke in a rather hurried tone. “Is it confirmed?”

“Yes” said Vice Marshall Ramirez in an accented English in a calm but informative tone in his voice. “Turns out, it is worse than we initially expected.”

“What!?” she snapped immediately. “What exactly am I looking at in their composition?”

“Apparently, six SDVs, two of each type.” said Schneider in German. “Remember Thebe?”

“Yes, I remember” she replied in German, unconcerned initially. “What about it?” Schneider displayed the ship types on the CIC’s tactical information display, along with all the data about them. Reed’s face turned blank, and then began to display worry.

“Task Force 12” Reed said darkly. “Shit….they were twelve of those SDVs in my previous confrontation. I see they haven’t fully recovered.”

“Well, whatever it is worth, we better get ready.” spoke Schneider in German, attempting to be cautious.

“Agreed” spoke Ramirez. He then muttered in Spanish: “If we fail….God help us all.”
***

Various things here:

1) Suggest dropping the mentions of the characters speaking in different languages. There doesn't seem to be any reason for it.

2) What is Solomon Reed actually doing when supervising the habitation 'nodule'?

3) The conversation here has various issues:

a) Suggest dropping mention of SR speaking 'in a rather hurried tone'

b) What is confirmed, and how can something be confirmed and worse than expected at the same time?

c) How does Task Force 12, which is apparently down to something like half-strength, qualify as being 'worse than expected'?

d) Earlier you made a big deal out of the TF-12 being undetected as a key part of their strategy. Yet now the UN forces are shown detecting them. How does this work?

e) Couldn't Solomon-Reed look at a display to see what kind of force they are facing rather than having another person tell her about it?

f) Why are these characters acting as if their death/defeat is a foregone conclusion well before the battle has even started?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: Toparev had entered the CIC when they the UNAPA Task Force started passing Carpo on their approach, as per the optimistic scenario planned 5 days ago, in the nick of time. They had only to approach from a certain angle, and once they are within range of the targeting computers, open fire. So, he and the rest are ready. He turned to Comm-Lt. Davidenko.

These two sentences are both too long. You need to break them up into smaller chunks.

Also, you switch tenses about 3-4 times here.

How can a scenario planned 5 days previously be 'in the nick of time'?

IIRC near the beginning of the story you have a statement about the UN arriving in 9 days or it taking 9 days for the task force to get where it's going or something. Did they not start planning until 4 days into the trip?

After all the buildup about this being a likely suicide mission, the statements here seem like rather an understatement.

Ok, going to call it for today. More later,

Todd
Reply
#6
Will pick this up again tomorrow.

Been busy with other things, both OA and not. But have time to dive back into this again.

Thanks!

Todd
Reply
#7
Are all the crewmembers of this ship multilingual, or do they use translation software? If the latter, then swearing oaths in one's native language would also be translated, possibly into terms that might offend the listener. Just a thought.
Reply
#8
And picking things up where we left off...

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Sir.” Comm-Lt. Davidenko spoke. “The enemy is already passing by Carpo on their trajectory. Within the next two minutes, we will be making our manoeuvre.”

“Perfect.” Cdr. Toparev replied, then chuckled. He turned to Combat-Lt. Aliyev after transmitting via laser communications Davidenko’s findings.

“Aliyev!” he alerted the Lieutenant. “Deploy kinetic mines.”

“Understood, Commander!” he responded in kind.

Why is he chuckling? Also, who is he transmitting information to?

The term 'findings' is usually used in connection with scientific or forensic research of some kind. It feels a little off being used in this context. I'd suggest using a different term.

Finally, when you say that the Lieutenant 'responded in kind' what do you mean by that? What has Toparev said or done that would justify responding in the same way?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: The kinetic mines were deployed into the trajectory UNAPA was going to take as they approached Carpo. Carpo was a very uninhabited moon with little of note. It was three kilometres in diameter and they were a few dozen kilometres in distance relative to it, and by the time those mines were deployed, Task Force 12 was already in the process of conducting its approach.

Task Force 12 began conducting the manoeuvre, retracted the primary radiators, and their primary engines began to roar. In reality, these engines would not be heard in a vacuum, but the “roaring”was felt by the crew as the engines began their work. Of course, the manoeuvre took some time to complete with the primary engines, despite their deceleration having recently finished earlier, and then they began their approach.

This section is kind of hard to understand. Meaning, it's not really clear what they are doing or why. The description of Carpo would probably work better earlier in the story, probably during the military briefing scene.

Also, how powerful are you thinking these engines are and why would they be vibrating the ship like this? One of our members recently did some work updating our pages on fusion and amat rockets and by and large they are low thrust (accelerations in tenths or hundredths of a gravity) due to waste heat and other issues.

Even with a drive capable of much higher accelerations, it's not clear that there would be a lot of vibration produced. Why would this be the case? An ionized plasma reacting against a magnetic field doesn't seem likely to produce a lot of vibration, let alone enough to producing a 'roaring' effect.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote:
***
Meanwhile, the UNSDV Beowulf had detected the manoeuvre and the craft, along with the rest of the Task Force’s SDVs prepared for combat and the SCVs were given the order to take evasive manoeuvres.

“Sir!” spoke Rec-Lt. Zhang to Cdr. Schneider. “We have incoming bogies and several mines on our trajectory.”

“Damn it.” Schneider spoke to himself, trying to hide his emotions. “We have to pick our vectors carefully.”

Why couldn't they detect the TF-12 ships long before they got to this point? If they can detect incoming ships and mines, why can't they take evasive action (my sense was that the mines were on passive trajectories and so just moving a few km in the right direction would cause the mines to just fly on past harmlessly. Alternatively, why don't the ships have point defense systems to intercept incoming mines or missiles?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: Ramirez entered the CIC and turned to Schneider.

“Commander” he said. “Status report.”

“We have a minefield and multiple enemies on approach”

“Well then.” Ramirez replied. “If they want a fight, we can give them one they will never leave alive.” He activated the craft’s radio transmitter.

“All craft, I have two orders: one, avoid those mines at all costs and two, ready your weapons…...” he spoke into the radio and awaited for the weapons to be within range of the computer systems. The computer gave the firing solution a few moments later.“ ….and FIRE!”

Suggest you drop all mention of 'firing solutions'. This is not submarine warfare.

Suggest tweaking this last paragraph. It sounds rather stilted. For one thing, what else would he be speaking into?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: The coilguns in each SOV fired their kinetic slugs out the barrels and at a high speed, they were sent flying into the enemy.

This sentence is overly detailed (for lack of a better term). Basically it tells the reader a bunch of things they can probably already figure out or would already know (being SF fans). There are few, if any, guns that operate by firing a projectile into their barrels or at low speed. I realize you are wanting to be descriptive, but I'd recommend cutting this down to something like 'The coilguns locked on and sent a stream of kinectic slugs flying into the enemy formation.'

Or something like that.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote:
***
“Incoming enemy fire!” said Comm-Lt. Ivchenko on the BKK Reaper’s CIC as UNAPA fired its coilguns.

“All craft” spoke Guskov over the radio. “Launch 30 drones, 2 each hostile craft and RETURN FIRE!”

So TF-12, with only about six ships, is going up against a fleet of 15 craft, each of equal or greater firepower? And is going to destroy them all? This seems somewhat unlikely.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: Task Force 12’s own kinetic slugs fired out the barrels and at high speed. However, the drones were also being launched, and they used their main stages, all gas core nuclear thermal engines, to accelerate in the direction of the enemy and change their trajectory.

The enemy drone carriers later on launched their drones and the two sides had their drones and kinetic slugs flying past them, with each side’s pilots trying their best to avoid damage or destruction.

Pretty much the same issues I raised before:

a) Why didn't the UN fleet detect TF-12 long before this point?

b) Why not take evasive action such that all the passive stuff just flies by?

c) Why no point defenses to destroy incoming weapons fire?

On a different note, how far out from Jupiter is all this happening and how far apart are these fleets?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote:
***
After nearly 9 to 10 minutes, the drones began their approach, and depleted their main stage propellant. The fairings were separated, and the terminal attack stages were decoupled from the main stage. As they approached, the stages were within range of the SDeVs, which partially opened the combat mirrors and fired their lasers. These lasers, however, were not visible at all. In fact, the beams, even in visible light would never be visible outside an atmosphere. They were fired at 20 km of distance from the approach of the stages and within seconds, many of those stages were destroyed and those that were not, slammed into the enemy craft, either directly or after a period of course corrections. When it did, though…..BOOM!

Too much exposition here. Need to pare this down significantly. A lot of what's here is either saying too much or being too vague.

Why 'nearly 9-10 minutes'?

Just say the lasers are invisible in vacuum and leave it at that. No need to talk about never being visible in an atmosphere.

Why only deploy lasers at 20km distance? Even now we are close to or at the ability to shoot a down missiles with lasers over greater distances than this. Surely they could do much better hundreds of years in the future.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote:
***
The alerts flashed on the tactical operations screen of the CIC, with the UNSDV Lazarus, the UNSCV Harry Truman, the UNSDV Shieldbearer, the UNSDV Nikolai Rhyzkov, the UNSDV Colossus and the UNSDV Robert Oppenheimer all physically obliterated by the sheer kinetic energy of a few simple tungsten rods. Ramirez, Schneider and Reed were all there in the bridge, the first who then spoke.

So six UN ships are destroyed in the first volley? But only 3 in TF-12? Why is that, other than dramatic effect? These ships seem singularly useless in the war fighting department. This seems highly unlikely for various reasons.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “All craft, casualty report.” he spoke via the radio transmitters.

“Vice Marshall” spoke Cdr. Mei of the UNSDV Tokugawa. “We lost at least 50% of our forces. We still have 2 SCVs left, but we have taken heavy losses.”

Why is everyone in command some form of Marshall in this universe? It seems odd. Beyond that, why is it necessary for all the ships to 'manually' report damage and casualties like some sort of WWII story? They should all be networked together and feeding real-time updates to the command ship on a constant basis. For that matter, why are there command ships, when with proper networking all the command functions could be spread across all the ships, or you could have a set up where command can shift to any surviving ship if the command ship is destroyed?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Damn it” said Reed in the background. Ramirez then spoke.

“Gentlemen, we have several mines incoming and a rebel Task Force closing in. I want all remaining craft to initiate evasive manoeuvres and fire all available weapons. Whatever you do, keep firing and do not stop for any reason other than friendly fire. Got it?”

First off, there are no female commanders in this future? Second, why didn't they do this from the very beginning instead of just sitting there and getting pounded for no good reason?

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Understood Vice Marshall.” spoke Cdr. David of the UNSDV Leviathan and the rest of the Task Force’s SDeVs and SOVs. The engines roared and they began their combat manoeuvre, all while trying to avoid the mines ahead. And it was not easy trying to avoid those mines and maintain a good approach angle.

The mines should actually be trivially easy to avoid since all they need to do is fly laterally for a few tens of km and they will avoid all of them. Carpo is about 17 million km from Jupiter, so they have lots of room to refine their trajectory before they get anywhere near the main moons.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote:
***
At the same time, the CIC onboard the BKK Death Dragon was flaring up with casualty reports, as the terminal attack stages released by hostile drones wiped out the BKK Reaper, the BKK Fireball and the BKK Hellfire. The ECM and the SDeVs were able to keep them off, but things were not looking good.

“Sir!” Davidenko spoke. His tone then turned to concern. “We lost the BKK Reaper.”

If incoming fire has wiped out half the task force, things are looking a lot worse than 'not good'.

Also, you don't need to include the 'BKK' (or whatever the UN equivalent is) every time a ship is named. It serves no purpose and annoys the reader.

And you tell the reader that the Reaper was destroyed twice. Suggest you drop or modify the sentence where a crewman tells the character about this when you've already told the audience. For that matter, as mentioned above, a real-time display could do this far more effectively.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Crap!” Cdr. Toparev replied in frustration. He did not consider the circumstances, but given the craft is physically destroyed, the likely scenario was that the Lieutenant Marshall was either reduced to particles or is a floating corpse in the vacuum of space, surrounded by lethal shrapnel and space junk. The battle-hardened veteran then cleared his head.

This section is mainly one long and garbled sentence. Suggest you break it up and rewrite it to make it clearer.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Gentlemen?” he spoke before the CIC and the rest of the crew. He then turned to the radio transmitter. “This is Lt. Marshall Yuri Mikhailovich Toparev. I am currently taking command of the remaining craft of Task Force 12. I want all survivors to report.”

“BKK Strength of Jupiter reporting.” Abdulov said via the radio transmitters.

“BKK Hand of Svarog, awaiting orders.” Kalinin said via the radio transmitters.

The entire crew of the ship is in the CIC (what does that mean btw?) so he can talk to them all at once? And why does he need to get everyone's attention before talking into the radio?

Also, you really don't need to tell the reader they are communicating via radio transmitters every time they do.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Then I have new orders” Toparev replied via the radio transmitter.

“Sir!” Davidenko barked to Toparev.”We have multiple bogies beginning their attack run!” Toparev turned away from the radio transmitter for a few moments.

“Well, then…..” he said confidently and turned back to the radio transmitter. “All craft, initiate combat manoeuvres and ready all weapons.” He then turned to the Vice Commander “Savvin? The BKK Death Dragon is yours now—Commander.”

“Understood, Lieutenant Marshall.” he replied with a crisp military salute. “You can count on me to lead us out alive.”

“I trust you will, Commander.” Toparev replied. “Now, contact the bridge in the Command Module. We need those engines running to engage the enemy. Lt. Aliyev, are we within range?”

First off, how are these orders any different from the first batch that were given?

Second, how can they not be detecting (or expecting) incoming fire long before this?

Third, you keep introducing new characters on both sides of this conflict every time there is a conversation. This simply fills up space with new names the reader needs to remember, but probably won't bother to because we know nothing about them (since they've just been introduced) and don't care yet (and based on experience we're never going to see most of them again so why should we?). You would do better to have a small cadre of main and secondary characters with names who handle the bulk of all dialog in the story. That gives the reader someone to care about instead of just another 2d name cutout that appears, says half a dozen words, and is never seen again.

Fourth, what is the Command Module, and when did it's engines stop working? This is never mentioned before this point.

(05-13-2016, 01:52 AM)Ace009 Wrote: “Yes, Commander.” he replied. “Specifically, we are talking at a range of 15,000 km and getting closer. That is the majority of the enemy craft, all SDVs, whereas the remaining SCVs and hostile Drone Carriers are attempting to stay behind.”

“Alright, good enough.” he replied to Aliyev. He then began to give orders to the fleet. “All weapons, fire on my signal.”

The craft on both sides began their next approach, even with dozens of depleted uranium slugs of ammunition (with their shrapnel) being affected by the ECM systems while their engines roared in order to get a precise approach vector and then fire their volleys of ammunition. It took them some time, of course, as they approached a distance of 5,000 km relative to each other, they began to aim their coilguns at each other, and when they did, the barrages of ammunition began to be released from their coilguns, Over a period of four minutes, the two sides would begin to receive the opponent’s barrage of weapons fire, and their ECM systems and the SDeVs would do everything to keep them away from the craft. These slugs were a problem, especially when they used a shrapnel shell-type method.

What sort of ECM systems can stop inert projectiles?

Also, for these ships to be where they are, they must be moving at tens or hundreds of km per sec. They really can't make repeated passes at each other like dogfighting aircraft. Unless TF-12, accelerated out here, slowed down, and accelerated back in toward Jupiter on the same trajectory as the UN fleet until they matched speed (all of which would be very very visible), then they are essentially moving toward or past each other at very high speed such that their closest approach will likely last no more than a few seconds.

So, it's not clear that this sort of battle is even physically possible. At least in the way currently described.

I'm going to stop here, because the remainder of the story has pretty much just more of the same issues as I've already pointed out previously.

I credit you for aiming to do a hard science fiction story, but there are a number of issues (scientific and otherwise) that need to be resolved or corrected in order for this to be a story that is both hard SF and a pleasure to read.

I think you can get there, but it will take some rewriting and changing things around some.

My 2c worth,

Todd
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