ABS FIESTA REDUX

[Qwepir]

Gus eyes up the mechanics as they walk in and allows them to take in the Dictator-class's schematics and the flight plan for a moment before clearing his throat and speaking.

"As you can see, we have quite the task ahead of us. Before the cruisers can level this carrier, we'll need to neuter the defenses to a minimum of fifty percent, preferably more. The approach will be risky in the extreme, and our available strike craft are both limited and mostly damaged to some extent."

Gus rubs his chin anxiously while studying the approach for seemingly the hundredth time.

"Some sort of advantage or new way to approach this would be preferable. We've lost a pilot and three more are in the infirmary, don't want to push that total any further if we can help it. I'm not sure if you've encountered something like this before, but any advice would be much appreciated. My only thought now is that we have a Sabre with a nuclear reactor, but... that's a one way trip."

: If it's going to be a one way trip then we could probably rig up something to fly the plane remotely, maybe take the guts out of one of the Culexes?

: You want us to turn the Sabre into a bomb, so you can do to these guys what you did to Tlacelel.
: Ah. I am sorry to say that if you want a destructive improvised weapon, a fusion engine is not the place to look. When a fusion reactor explodes, what you're seeing isn't a nuclear explosion, it's more like... a boiler exploding on a steam engine. How to explain...
: Okay, so I'm not about to launch into all the fiddly little details of how a fusion reactor works, but the relevant part here is that Deltan fusion engines have a vacuum sealed magnetic chamber with a toroid of plasma running through it. Really hot stuff in there, like, stellar body hot. If weapons fire were to puncture this chamber, air would get sucked in, superheated, expand, and blow the whole thing to smithereens in a brilliant explosion. Very bad for the person in the plane, but it's not a nuke. Major Geary got it to work because he was right on top of his target, and his target wasn't really all that big, but I can't see a fusion engine blowing up like that destroying an entire carrier.
: However, I can see some tactical use for intentionally breaching a fusion engine. The destructive force, while not quite on the level of real nuclear weapons, is still very significant. The brightness of it could serve as a distraction, of admittedly debatable effectiveness. And the heat created could make it act as a very potent, if not cost effective, infrared countermeasure.

: If it's going to be a one way trip then we could probably rig up something to fly the plane remotely, maybe take the guts out of one of the Culexes?

: Why's it got to be a one way trip? You've got that captured Imperial bomber. We could strip the engine from the Sabre, rig it to be remotely punctured, and you could drop it out of the bomb bay. It would be easier than converting an entire plane to be remotely operated, that's for sure. When do you guys take off, anyway?

[Ad Bot]

[Operator¹]

: How soon can you have the reactor rigged for the bomber?

[Qwepir]

: How soon can you have the reactor rigged for the bomber?

: I dunno, an hour? An hour and ten minutes? Shouldn't take us long.

[CypherX]

Gus nods as the engineers and Bell speak.

"Even with as much EMP and heat hardening as I imagine the Zents have built into that carrier, an explosion like that will fry their targeting for a short while. But we still need to get it over the carrier in that level bomber, which means exposing it and the crew to AA fire. One way or another someone is gonna have to brave that gauntlet."

He gestures towards the boulevard and the battery of weapons on the dreidecker.

[Qwepir]

Gus nods as the engineers and Bell speak.

"Even with as much EMP and heat hardening as I imagine the Zents have built into that carrier, an explosion like that will fry their targeting for a short while. But we still need to get it over the carrier in that level bomber, which means exposing it and the crew to AA fire. One way or another someone is gonna have to brave that gauntlet."

He gestures towards the boulevard and the battery of weapons on the dreidecker.

The team's leader examines the displays you were shown during the briefing.
: I mean, we're just engineers. You have a mechanical problem you want solved, we can help, but tactics and strategy... not so much. We can make you your bomb, but how you deploy it is up to you.

The nameless engineer begins rambling.
: We could make the Sabre remote-operated, but that would take days instead of hours. The only missiles large enough to carry it as a warhead are, well, probably even larger than the cruise missiles carried on board. I wouldn't know, I've never seen the missiles in person but I have seen a fusion engine before and those things are pretty big. Plus I can't imagine we'd be allowed to tamper with a missile like that, and even if we could it would take longer than just stripping it out of the plane and jury rigging it with a small explosive charge...

[CypherX]

"We're more or less sacrificing a plane either way. Keeping a pilot or crew out of harm's way too would be helpful."

"I don't suppose you happen to know anyone with experience in, ah, unconventional tactics and deployment? This is out of my league."

[Qwepir]

"We're more or less sacrificing a plane either way. Keeping a pilot or crew out of harm's way too would be helpful."

"I don't suppose you happen to know anyone with experience in, ah, unconventional tactics and deployment? This is out of my league."

: I do, but they aren't here. And they would need more than an hour to set up and execute their plan.

The other engineer snaps back during their rambling to address a previous point.

Even with as much EMP and heat hardening as I imagine the Zents have built into that carrier, an explosion like that will fry their targeting for a short while.

: ...also, like I said, it's not a nuclear explosion. There's no electromagnetic radiation given off when a fusion engine explodes.

While Gus talks unorthodox strategy to the technicians, Kommandant brings up more practical concerns with Crash.
: He can't seriously expect that all of us are going to fly down that corridor, right? The approach is clean for the most part, but look how close the end of the street is to the carrier. We're going to get nailed by laser-PD for that last 300 meters of road; and accurately returning fire is difficult at best, dangerous at worst. Even once we get out of the bottleneck, then what? There's no room to maneuver in there, not at low altitudes. We'll have to pull up, and then we're at the mercy of the entire PD suite.

Also at the same time, Frisk grumbles to Virvel and Walter about the Kintharian technicians.
: The hell are those people doing up here? Do they need to know exactly what we're going to be doing out there?

Virvel shrugs and attempts to eavesdrop on Gus's conversation from where the three of them are seated.

[CypherX]

"Any advice would be invaluable, and we can't hurt anything asking. I assume you know how to contact them?"

[Mr. Hurricane]

"All they'd have to do is dump fire in the corridor and we'd be stuff out of luck. With so little maneuvering room we'd probably fly in to buildings,"

Jaakko looks to the road and the airship on screen.

"And we can't use missile or toss bomb things at it either. Cluster bombs with dozens of small anti-tank bomblets could work, but we can't toss them without them being intercepted, and any gentle throw you might use running down Volk Street would cause you to fly over the target,"

He looks back to Kommadant.

"To be frank this mission should have been left to strategic weapons. Mercana's orbital weapons would be perfect if they still existed or if the Mercanans could be bothered to use them. Hell, they use them on the Deltan beachfront we covered when we landed down there, where cruise missiles could have done the job well enough,"

[Qwepir]

"Any advice would be invaluable, and we can't hurt anything asking. I assume you know how to contact them?"

: They're on-
: They aren't available right now, I'm sorry to say.

"All they'd have to do is dump fire in the corridor and we'd be stuff out of luck. With so little maneuvering room we'd probably fly in to buildings,"

Jaakko looks to the road and the airship on screen.

"And we can't use missile or toss bomb things at it either. Cluster bombs with dozens of small anti-tank bomblets could work, but we can't toss them without them being intercepted, and any gentle throw you might use running down Volk Street would cause you to fly over the target,"

He looks back to Kommadant.

"To be frank this mission should have been left to strategic weapons. Mercana's orbital weapons would be perfect if they still existed or if the Mercanans could be bothered to use them. Hell, they use them on the Deltan beachfront we covered when we landed down there, where cruise missiles could have done the job well enough,"

Kommandant all but cuts Jaakko off as he goes on about the Delta.
: We don't have any strategic-level fire support, Crash, so forget about that altogether. All we have is a battered air wing manned by exhausted crew.

He scratches his chin as he observes the map.
: Quite frankly, putting every plane we have through that trench run is moronic. Something goes wrong up front and we could lose damn near everything to a collision fractal cluster forget. Even if something doesn't go wrong, we'll just get bottlenecked at the end of the road when the LAMS opens up. And, there's still that cloaked drone carrier that may or may not be in the area, so we cannot completely eliminate the possibility of hostile drones showing up. We need some hard hitters to take the low route, we need air cover hanging back behind them or even going high, and we need a distraction once they get there. ...And my hardest hitter is currently stuffting out all the bullets he ate earlier, so that sets us back even more.

[NoZoner]

Overhearing Rikard, Ash raises his hand and asks the Sky Marshal directly.

"Hey, Volk street isn't the only street we can take to the carrier, right? Aren't there other ways we can use to mask our approach?"

[Badger]

: The hell are those people doing up here? Do they need to know exactly what we're going to be doing out there?

Virvel shrugs and attempts to eavesdrop on Gus's conversation from where the three of them are seated.

"Maybe they're trying to get them to part with some of their precious burst missiles, if those can be mounted on any other type of plane."

[Mr. Hurricane]

Jaakko shifts his weight between his legs.

"What I'm thinking is we send two, maybe three planes down in to Volk street at a time.
They'll be our strafers and should be armed with missile-range coaxials. One of them, or a seperate escort aircraft should run with them and carry a LAMS and a full load of countermeasures. It could be a fighter or a strike aircraft,"

He shifts his attention to the map.

"They could strafe the side of the carrier from missile range and then pull directly up and peel away. It'll attract missiles but we will have the GSCRAM, and hopefully the group will be dropping chaff while they do this to prevent locks. I would say we have our spare MiGs fly cover from farther out with some kind of air to air load,"

He shifts his weight again.

"I would hope that in the run the strafing group could take out the beam and dual turret. After that we wouldn't have to worry about much more than missiles. It's still a concern but at least they're not pouring PPC and laser fire down Volk. After that, if we saturate that side of the carrier, we could probably throw cluster bombs at it,"

[Operator¹]

Overhearing Rikard, Ash raises his hand and asks the Sky Marshall directly.

"Hey, Volk street isn't the only street we can take to the carrier, right? Aren't there other ways we can use to mask our approach?"

Bell checks for other streets on the map.

[CypherX]

"That's disappointing."

Gus rubs his chin again and looks over the map.

"Well, unless you have any other suggestions, I think that's all for now. We need to discuss how we'll be approaching the carrier and whether or not we'll be using the reactor."